handsel

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Aleman, Cervantes, Lesage, Defoe and Fielding were inspired to imitation, and today Lazarillo is acclaimed as the prototype of the picaresque novel, as a handsel of the arriving era of realism in European literature.

From Time Magazine Archive

And now by such illumination, jubilee, dancing and fire-working, do we joyously handsel the new Social Edifice, and first raise heat and reek there, in the name of Hope.

From The French Revolution by Carlyle, Thomas

Under the name of handsel to Pius IX., the Catholic press opened subscription lists.

From Pius IX. And His Time by Dawson, Æneas MacDonell

The disguised ladies take the handsel from them, without knowing that they are bound by it, until the sheriff arrives to confirm the bargain.

From The Standard Operaglass Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas by Annesley, Charles, pseud.

After five minutes she went away from him, as she walked putting away in her stocking the earned money, on which, as on the first handsel, she had first spat, after a superstitious custom.

From Yama: the pit by Guerney, Bernard Guilbert