Word.ws English Dictionary

secondhanded

secondhanded adjective: previously owned or used.

Adjective

secondhanded (not comparable)

  1. Previously owned or used.
    • The clerk studied them. "You could get secondhanded ones for half price," he told Aunt Julina kindly.1949, Mattie Virginia Harris, Weddin' Trimmin's, page 58
    • If the article to which the label or brand is to be attached is secondhanded, the brand or label shall consist of the following: "This mattress (or other article of bedding) is secondhanded and has been sterilized."1965, California Legislature Senate Fact Finding Committee on Business and Commerce, Report to the Legislature - Volumes 1-2, page 198
  2. Dealing in used goods.
    • You know, they had these secondhanded stores. Dad went to get me a pair of knee pants, but they'd been here too long!1976, Eliot Wigginton, I wish I could give my son a wild raccoon, →ISBN, page 358
    • There were furniture stores, but so many of the secondhanded stores carried furniture.1996, Elizabeth Kytle, Home on the Canal, →ISBN, page 257
  3. Indirect.
    • We "speak of the things that we have seen," and not as one who offers secondhanded reports.1855, Horatio Gates Jameson, A Treatise on epidemic cholera, page 198
    • We believe that Peter, James, and John actually did see holy angels—did behold Meses and Elias, and see Jesus transfigured, upon secondhanded testimonies given on the subject.1961, Journal of Discourses - Volume 7, page 36
  4. Ersatz.
    • The common error in most architectural schools is that basic design is taught at an abstract level using contemporary artists as examples to go by. This secondhanded process usually produces little Mondrians, Bauers, Gabos, Moores or, if the faculty member has enough to offer, little duplications...1951, Student Publications, The School of Design NC State College - Volumes 1-2, page li
    • “A grand scale is impersonal, and my thing, as you call it, is real and right here, right now, not some secondhanded satisfaction lording it over the flies."2014, Warren R. B. Dixon, The Copenhagen Interpretation, →ISBN

Adverb

secondhanded (not comparable)

  1. In a used condition.
    • Finding that I could not get an answer to my request from the trustees of the British Museum, I have come to the conclusion that these gentlemen did a great injustice in selling my collection at public auction, which was done for no other purpose than that of throwing my valuable specimens into the...1855, William P. Smith, A Naturalist's Chapter of Difficulties, pages 25–26
    • If I got it from Mr. Rauh, I would get it secondhanded, or if I got it from you I would get it secondhanded.1957, United States Congress Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Hearings - Volume 6, page 9097
  2. Indirectly
    • What I have learned outside of what is written in this secret history regarding town and village government, we shall not here mention as it would be recorded from hearsay or secondhanded.1905, John Piter Anderson, Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Opening of the First of the Seven Seals and the Constitution and Marriage Statutes of the Most Ancient Appagejans 650,000 Years Ago, page 589
    • A man in the country does his own thinking. Get him into town and he will be thinking secondhanded.2007 July-August, Will Rogers, “Ponderables”, in American Cowboy, volume 4, number 2, page 32
  3. In second place, repeating another.
    • The well-springs of scientific truth are not so far exhausted that there is nothing left for the engineering teacher, in the way of research, but to work at it secondhanded, perhaps going no further than to corroborate the earlier work undertaken by manufacturers.1901, American Society for Engineering Education, Society for the Promotion of Engineering, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting - Volume 9, page 254
    • Of course, I think we go secondhanded into most of these conferences anyway, but in this case we would have a definite assurance we would be going in secondhanded.1960, United States Congress Senate Committee on Commerce, Hearings, page 32

Examples of secondhanded in a sentence

  • "Secondhanded goods has chips," said the cobbler stoutly.1987, Walter Dumaux Edmonds, Rome Haul, →ISBN, page 170:
  • Didn't look secondhanded or nothing when we finished adding the touch to it.2012, L.See, All Of Ya'll Aren't From The North, →ISBN:
  • Babe bought them at a secondhanded store.2004, Elizabeth Kytle, Willie Mae, →ISBN, page 75:
  • Religion thus enters upon a new phase, a stage wherein it gradually becomes secondhanded; always does a medicine man, a shaman, or a priest intervene between the religionist and the object of worship.2008, Urantia Foundation, The Urantia Book, →ISBN, page 986:

Forms of secondhanded

alternative formsecond-handed

Origin of secondhanded

From second + handed.

Words formed from secondhanded

Questions about secondhanded

What does secondhanded mean?
Secondhanded means previously owned or used.
How do you use secondhanded in a sentence?
"Secondhanded goods has chips," said the cobbler stoutly.
What part of speech is secondhanded?
Secondhanded can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near secondhanded in the dictionary

  1. secondhand bookshop
  2. secondhand bookshops
  3. secondhand embarrassment
  4. secondhand embarrassments
  5. secondhand smoke
  6. secondhanded
  7. secondhandedly
  8. secondhandedness
  9. secondi
  10. secondigravida
  11. secondigravidae

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: secondhanded (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: “secondhanded.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/secondhanded. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.