handsel

Aleman, Cervantes, Lesage, Defoe and Fielding were inspired to imitation, and today Lazarillo is acclaimed as the prototype of the picaresque novel, as a handsel of the arriving era of realism in European literature.

From Time Magazine Archive

When you have become expert at it, you may always keep yourself neat and tidy about the legs, on Sundays and handsel Mondays.

From The Eskdale Herd-boy A Scottish Tale for the Instruction and Amusement of Young People by Mrs. (Martha) Blackford

Come hither and handsel him self-doom for thy fool’s onset!’

From The Roots of the Mountains; Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale by William Morris

Across the downs, on the bluff, stands the Villa Eugénie, the handsel of Biarritz's prosperity; and here about us is the town that grew up to make her court.

From A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix

Then Hrut held his peace some little while, and afterwards he stood up, and said to Oswif, "Take now my hand in handsel as a token that thou lettest the suit drop."

From The Story of Burnt Njal: the great Icelandic tribune, jurist, and counsellor by Unknown

"Liberty has always been bought with life, and the glory of the greatest nations handseled with the blood of their founders."

From Remember the Alamo by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!

From The House of Atreus by E. D. A. (Edmund Doidge Anderson) Morshead

She handselled it, and hastening where he lay, cried in furious fashion, "You are unbound already."

From French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France by Marie de France

Then he made peace between them and clad them all in sumptuous dresses of honour and handselled them with precious jewels of land and sea.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume IV by John Payne

Holy peace at length they handselled, Eric must in bonds be laid!

From Eric Brighteyes by Henry Rider Haggard

And now this settlement and atonement was handselled and was well kept afterwards.

From The Story of Burnt Njal: the great Icelandic tribune, jurist, and counsellor by Unknown

Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends love.

From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 Letters 1821-1842 by Mary Lamb

So now he gave forth the handselling grandly with open mouth, and this is the beginning thereof.

From The Story of Grettir the Strong by William Morris