handed down
handed down is the simple past and past participle of hand down.
Meaning of hand down
Verb
hand down (third-person singular simple present hands down, present participle handing down, simple past and past participle handed down)
- To transmit in succession, as from father to son, or from predecessor to successor.
- Fables are handed down from age to age.
- To deliver (the decision of a court, etc.)
- The jury handed down a verdict of guilty.
- To forward to the proper officer (the decision of a higher court).
- The Clerk of the Court of Appeals handed down its decision.
- To donate (as second hand.)
- When my older brother grows out of his clothes, he hands them down to me.
Questions about handed down
- What is handed down the simple past and past participle of?
- Handed down is the simple past and past participle of hand down.
Words near handed down in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: handed down (page history and authors); hand down (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “handed down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handed_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
