handsel

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

They sang a doggerel rhyme, and the form in which money was asked was, "Please to handsel the Lord and Lady's purse."

From Miscellanea by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

But the devil a sou the devils took; far from taking handsel, they were flouted and jeered by the country louts.

From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 4 by Peter Anthony Motteux

Then Hauskuld said, "Let us close the matter then, and handsel him peace on behalf of thy sons".

From The story of Burnt Njal From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga by George Webbe Dasent

Then on the 2'd of January 1671 being hansell   Monday I gave my wife to give out to people   who expected handsel, 4 dollars.

From Publications of the Scottish History Society, Volume 36 Journals of Sir John Lauder Lord Fountainhall with His Observations on Public Affairs and Other Memoranda 1665-1676 by Lord John Lauder Fountainhall

"Liberty has always been bought with life, and the glory of the greatest nations handseled with the blood of their founders."

From Remember the Alamo by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

Their son handselled them together, and gave the mother to his sire.

From French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France by Marie de France

She handselled it, and hastening where he lay, cried in furious fashion, "You are unbound already."

From French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France by Marie de France

And now this settlement and atonement was handselled and was well kept afterwards.

From The Story of Burnt Njal: the great Icelandic tribune, jurist, and counsellor by Unknown

And between their clasped hands it lay,—the bit of orange ribbon that had handselled all their happiness.

From The Bow of Orange Ribbon A Romance of New York by Theo. Hampe

In March or April he handselled his freedom, as Chamberlain wrote to tell Carleton, with a journey round London to see the new buildings erected since his imprisonment.

From Sir Walter Ralegh A Biography by W. (William) Stebbing

Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends love.

From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 Letters 1821-1842 by Mary Lamb

So now he gave forth the handselling grandly with open mouth, and this is the beginning thereof.

From The Story of Grettir the Strong by William Morris