Handsel vs Handset - What's the difference?
handsel | handset |
(obsolete) A lucky omen.
A gift given at New Year, or at the start of some enterprise or new situation, meant to ensure good luck.
* Fuller:
* Herrick:
The first installment, or first payment of money in a day or series.
(obsolete) price; payment
To give a handsel to.
* 2002 , Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea , Vintage 2003, p.55:
To inaugurate by means of some ceremony; to break in.
*, Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, p.86:
To use or do for the first time, especially so as to make fortunate or unfortunate; to try experimentally.
* {{quote-book
, year=1647, author=(Thomas Fuller)
, title= *:Indeed there is no contrivance of our body, but some good man in Scripture hath hanselled it with prayer.
*
, isbn=978-1-56858-000-5, page=38, publisher=Four Walls Eight Windows}}
*:of the other's.
The part of a telephone containing both receiver and transmitter (and sometimes dial), held in the hand.
As nouns the difference between handsel and handset
is that handsel is (obsolete) a lucky omen while handset is the part of a telephone containing both receiver and transmitter (and sometimes dial), held in the hand.As a verb handsel
is to give a handsel to.handsel
English
Alternative forms
* hanselNoun
(en noun)- their first good handsel of breath in this world
- Our present tears here, not our present laughter, / Are but the handsels of our joys hereafter.
- (Spenser)
Derived terms
* Handsel Monday, the first Monday of the new year, when handsels or presents are given to servants, children, etc.Verb
- She would leave a gold guinea to hansel the baby.
- And it is better undecently to faile in hanseling the nuptiall bed, full of agitation and fits, by waiting for some or other fitter occasion, and more private opportunitie, lest sudden and alarmed, than to fall into a perpetuall miserie, by apprehending an astonishment and desperation of the first refusall.
Good Thoughts in Worse Times}}