Word.ws English Dictionary

second hands

second hands is the plural of second hand.

Meaning of second hand

Noun (1)

second hand (plural second hands)

  1. An intermediate person or means; intermediary.
    • “My Lord Oxford, by a second hand, proposed my being his chaplain, which I, by a second hand, excused.1826, Walter Scott, editor, Memoirs of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin, page 135

Noun (2)

second hand (plural second hands)

  1. On the clock face of a clock or watch, the hand (pointer) that shows the number of seconds that have passed.
    • ... the ticking of a second hand. Tick, tick, tick. The clock. Jude wrenched himself free of his gift's trance, surprised that there wasn't a tearing sound when his hand came free of the doubloon. The visions fell away, and he felt his ...2018 April 17, Bryan Camp, The City of Lost Fortunes, Titan Books, →ISBN, →OCLC

Questions about second hands

What is second hands the plural of?
Second hands is the plural of second hand.

Words near second hands in the dictionary

  1. second guesses
  2. second guessing
  3. second half
  4. second halves
  5. second hand
  6. second hands
  7. Second Happy Time
  8. second helping
  9. second helpings
  10. second home
  11. second homes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: second hands (page history and authors); second hand (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: “second hands.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/second_hands. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.