Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Handed down to one person after being used and discarded by another.
- adj. Of inferior quality; shabby.
- n. Something, such as an article of clothing, that is passed on from one person to another.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Same as reach-me-down.
Wiktionary
- n. An item that is passed along for someone else to use; especially, a piece of clothing or other item which has been outgrown by a older sibling and passed down to a younger one.
- adj. Used or second-hand, passed along by its prior user
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obtained or used after prior use by another person.
- n. An outgrown garment given to one person after use by another; -- usually transferred between members of a family or close friends.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. passed on from one person to another
- n. outgrown garment passed down from one person to another
Examples
“Dannel Malloy travels usually via a state-owned Lincoln Mercury, a hand-me-down from his predecessor, M.”
“It was back to using my four-fingered, hand-me-down glove.”
“One of the things—what used to be a black teenager in a dirty Allen Iverson 76ers jersey and a pair of hand-me-down Jordans—feeds on a fake-tanned white guy in a slick black convertible.”
“And Kim had me come right over to her house so she could load me up with all of these hand-me-down baby clothes that had belonged to her kids.”
“The idea of deserving versus underserving poor is a hand-me-down from the Protestant/English work ethic that has a long history of ignoring the poorest and denigrating them to squalor.”
“When a kid gets a pair of Nike sneakers that are new rather than somebody's hand-me-down, that to them is like they've reached nirvana.”
“But unlike used mitts and bats, you can't exactly pass off a broken board or pair of tattered, hole-ridden shoes as a hand-me-down; even the Goodwill and Play It Again Sports have standards.”
The Huffington Post: Kevin Duffel: Skateboarders Going Green
“Every day I will reinvent the dress with layers, accessories and all kinds of accouterments, the majority of which will be vintage, hand-made, or hand-me-down goodies ...”
“Such fiction may otherwise seem "standard" in its use of all of the hand-me-down practices of traditional narrative, but it's still full of "finely wrought prose, vivid characters, delectable details," as Shriver puts it a few paragraph later.”
“I think a lot of grooms are going to be digging around in their mothers' jewelry boxes for hand-me-down rings," says Carley Romey, editor in chief of weddings website TheKnot.”
The Wall Street Journal: 6 Smart Wedding Tips From William and Kate
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hand-me-down’.
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Handy Words
List of words and phrases referring to the hand, hands, fist, or derivatives of the Latin manus, beginning with left-handed.
left-handed, double-fisted, fisticuffs, handy, right-handed, two-handed, manual, manumission, manuscript, manually, manustupration, manudiction and 164 more...
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