Word.ws English Dictionary

second-hand

second-hand is the alternative spelling of secondhand.

Meaning of secondhand

Adjective

secondhand (not comparable)

  1. Not new; previously owned and used by another.
  2. Dealing in such merchandise.
  3. (figuratively) Indirect; from a secondary source; not firsthand.
    • In the light of recent history it is somewhat curious that this decisive power of the professional secondhand dealers in ideas should not yet be more generally recognized.1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 417
  4. Inhaled from the air near someone else smoking.
    • exposure to secondhand smoke from cigarette-smoking colleagues

See all 7 meanings of secondhand

Words formed from second-hand

Phrases with second-hand

Questions about second-hand

What is second-hand the alternative spelling of?
Second-hand is the alternative spelling of secondhand.

Words near second-hand in the dictionary

  1. second-guessers
  2. second-guesses
  3. second-guessing
  4. second-guessings
  5. second-half
  6. second-hand
  7. second-hand shop
  8. second-hand shops
  9. second-hand smoke
  10. second-hand speech
  11. second-hand store

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: second-hand (page history and authors); secondhand (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-second-hand.wav.

Cite this entry: “second-hand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/second-hand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.