SECOND HAND • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Second hand

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/sˈɛkənd hænd/ Listen

noun

Second n.

1.

One who, or that which, follows, or comes after; one next and inferior in place, time, rank, importance, excellence, or power. "Man An angel's second, nor his second long."

2.

One who follows or attends another for his support and aid; a backer; an assistant; specifically, one who acts as another's aid in a duel. "Being sure enough of seconds after the first onset."

3.

Aid; assistance; help. (Obs.) "Give second, and my love Is everlasting thine."

4.

pl. An article of merchandise of a grade inferior to the best; esp., a coarse or inferior kind of flour.

5.

The sixtieth part of a minute of time or of a minute of space, that is, the second regular subdivision of the degree; as, sound moves about 1,140 English feet in a second; five minutes and ten seconds north of this place.

6.

In the duodecimal system of mensuration, the twelfth part of an inch or prime; a line. See Inch, and Prime, n., 8.

7.

(Mus.)

(a)

The interval between any tone and the tone which is represented on the degree of the staff next above it.

(b)

The second part in a concerted piece; often popularly applied to the alto.

8.

(Parliamentary Procedure) A motion in support of another motion which has been moved in a deliberative body; a motion without a second dies without discussion.

Second hand, the hand which marks the seconds on the dial of a watch or a clock.

See images of 'Second hand'

Etymology of 'Second hand'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Second hand" Quotes from Famous Books

... beg, by all that binds a friend, Let me go with you, when you next attend; For though you've every detail at command, There's something must be lost at second hand. Then the man's look, his manner—these may seem Mere things of course, perhaps, in your esteem, So privileged as you are: for me, I feel An inborn thirst, a more than common zeal, Up to the distant river-head to mount, And quaff these precious ...

— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... the month of September, 1916, there appeared in the Cornhill Magazine a story entitled "The Lost Naval Papers." I had told this story at second hand, for the incidents had not occurred within my personal experience. One of the principals—to whom I had allotted the temporary name of Richard Cary—was an intimate friend, but I had never met the Scotland ...

— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... at his watch again. The minute hand was moving with the speed at which the second hand ...

— The End of Time • Wallace West

... doubly true when we have only the testimony of contemporaries as to the effect which the oration produced. The fiery utterances of Adams, Otis, and Quincy were either not reported at all or very imperfectly reported, so that posterity can judge of them only at second hand. Patrick Henry has fared better, many of his orations being preserved in substance, if not in the letter, in Wirt's biography. Of these the most famous was the defiant speech in the Convention of ...

— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... curiosity as to the interrupted narrative, even in despite of the evident frivolity of the narrator. The arrangement of the party in the coach compelled me to hear it at second hand, and I found it less frivolous than I had anticipated: it was an amour between the King and a peasant's daughter, in which the King conducted himself in a manner as little excusable in a monarch, as in a more humble individual. The amour ...

— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

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