HAND DOWN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Hand down

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/hænd daʊn/ Listen

verb

Hand v. t. (past & past part. handed; pres. part. handing)

To give, pass, or transmit with the hand; as, he handed them the letter.

To lead, guide, or assist with the hand; to conduct; as, to hand a lady into a carriage.

To manage; as, I hand my oar. (Obs.)

To seize; to lay hands on. (Obs.)

To pledge by the hand; to handfast. (R.)

(Naut.) To furl; said of a sail.

To hand down, to transmit in succession, as from father to son, or from predecessor to successor; as, fables are handed down from age to age; to forward to the proper officer (the decision of a higher court); as, the Clerk of the Court of Appeals handed down its decision.

To hand over, to yield control of; to surrender; to deliver up.

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Etymology of 'Hand down'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Hand down" Quotes from Famous Books

... lifted his head into the air as high as it could possibly go, and brought the flat of his hand down with a solemn and sounding ...

— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... was immense. They shrieked and hugged each other with delight, and it is likely that they will hand down these animals for generations in the ...

— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge

... chuckled No. 8 with a grin, as he clapped one little fat hand down upon the other on his lap in ...

— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... bearded priests at the entrance of the catacomb present to each pilgrim, as a memento, a useful and much valued wax candle, which one lights and carries in one's hand down the steep and slippery steps of the subterranean passages. All along, the procession halts before mummified and most unattractive bodies, a buzzing of prayers being raised by the pilgrims when the identity of each ...

— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... read by grand-children and their grand-children, who will point with pride to the illustrious achievements and say: "These were my ancestors who fought in that great war and did these glorious things!" What richer legacy can you hand down? This is fame! This is glory! And do not these come of honest ambition? But there are incidents, episodes, deeds that come under the observation only of the few—sometimes of the individual—which, little in themselves and seemingly inconsequential, help to make up the grand story. ...

— Bugle Blasts - Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of - the Loyal Legion of the United States • William E. Crane

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