hansel
hansel is the alternative form of handsel.
Meaning of handsel
Noun
handsel (plural handsels)
- A lucky omen.
- A gift given at New Year, or at the start of some enterprise or new situation, meant to ensure good luck.
- their first good handsel of breath in this world1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)
- Price, payment; especially the first installment of a series.
- That whoso hardy hand on her doth lay ,
It dearly shall abye and death for handsel pay1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- That whoso hardy hand on her doth lay ,
Proper noun capitalized: Hansel
Hansel
- An Anglicised spelling of the German given name Hänsel. English equivalent: Johnny.
- A fictional character in the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.
Forms of hansel
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | hansels |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | hansels |
| present participle US | hanseling |
| present participle UK | hanselling |
| past participle US | hanseled |
| past US | hanseled |
| past participle UK | hanselled |
| past UK | hanselled |
Phrases with hansel
Questions about hansel
- What does hansel mean?
- Hansel means an Anglicised spelling of the German given name Hänsel. English equivalent: Johnny.
- What is hansel the alternative form of?
- Hansel is the alternative form of handsel.
- What part of speech is hansel?
- Hansel is a proper noun.
Words near hansel in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hansel (page history and authors); Hansel (page history and authors); handsel (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.
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Cite this entry: “hansel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hansel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.