喜樂美語
  1. 1傳下來的舊衣（多半是兄姊穿過的，不是店裡買的二手衣）

    A hand-me-down is a piece of clothing that someone has already worn, then given to another person — often an older or sister growing out of it and passing it to a younger one. Toys and books can be hand-me-downs too. It is not the same as buying used clothes in a shop; the feeling is “this was passed to me,” usually inside a family. People also use it as an adjective: hand-me-down jeans. It can sound warm, or a little sad if you never get anything new. The phrase is built from hand down, meaning to pass something on, with me in the middle: it is handed down to me.

    hand-me-down 指別人穿過、之後再轉給另一個人的衣服，常見的情況是哥哥或姐姐穿不下了，傳給弟弟或妹妹。玩具和書也可以這樣傳下來。它和在店裡買的二手衣不一樣，重點在「這是傳給我的」，通常發生在家人之間。它也可以當形容詞用，像「hand-me-down jeans」。這個詞聽起來可能很溫暖，但如果一直都只能撿別人的、從來沒有新東西，也可能會有一點傷感。它是由 hand down（傳下來）組成，中間加了 me，就是傳到我手上的意思。

From the word’s history

See hand down and me.

來自片語 hand down（傳下去），再加上 me。

Wiktionary

組成From the verb hand down (pass something to someone younger or next in line), with me in the middle.

同家族的字

  • hand downthe verb this is built from: to pass something on to another person

原始詞典資料4 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

hand-me-downnoun

  • 1

    An item that is passed along for someone else to use.

    • Well, I'm willing, I'm able, I'm practically much alive / Well, I'm six-feet-tall, I ain't no hand-me-down
    • But these routes have always had hand-me-downs that aren't really designed for the job.
  • 2

    A piece of clothing or other item which has been outgrown by an older sibling and passed down to a younger one.

hand-me-downadj

  • 1

    Used or second-hand, passed along by its prior user.

    • And what costume shall the poor girl wear / To all tomorrow's parties? / A hand-me-down dress from who knows where
    • 1983, 19th of March, Presidential Radio Address by Ronald Reagan I don't want America's recovery and security to be sacrificed on an altar of discredited hand-me-down theories. And if you'll help us, they won't be.

hand-me-downverb

  • 1

    rareTo pass along to someone else.

    • “See into life, don’t just look at it” is her [Anne Baxter’s] creditable credo, hand-me-downed from her famous architect grandfather, the late Frank Lloyd Wright.
    • The carpet was a montage of fade and unfade indicating that when new it had been used in another office—probably Mr. Barlowe’s—and then hand-me-downed when the decorators had cut loose.

摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。