Meaning & use
hand-me-down shirt
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A shirt that someone has already worn and then given to a younger or poorer person to wear.
Grammar: Countable: say a hand-me-down shirt or two hand-me-down shirts.
Patterns
- a hand-me-down shirt from someone
- wear a hand-me-down shirt
- pass a shirt down to someone
He wore a hand-me-down shirt from his older brother to the first day of school.
She didn't mind hand-me-down shirts, but she always chose her own shoes.
The charity gave each child a hand-me-down shirt and a warm coat.
nouncountableinformal
A shirt that is old and no longer fashionable but still worn because it is free or useful.
Grammar: Often used with a slightly negative or humorous tone about style.
Patterns
- look like a hand-me-down shirt
- a faded hand-me-down shirt
That hand-me-down shirt looks like something from the 1990s.
He turned up in a hand-me-down shirt that was two sizes too big.
Word forms
| plural | hand-me-down shirts |
|---|
Common combinations
- a hand-me-down shirt from someone
- I still have a hand-me-down shirt from my cousin.
- wear a hand-me-down shirt
- He wore a hand-me-down shirt until he could afford new clothes.
- pass a shirt down
- Families often pass shirts down from one child to the next.
- a faded hand-me-down shirt
- She slept in a faded hand-me-down shirt.
- hand-me-down clothes
- The box was full of hand-me-down clothes for the baby.
Synonyms and how they differ
- secondhand shirt
- Secondhand shirt means it was bought used; a hand-me-down shirt is usually given free by family or friends.
- cast-off
- Cast-off is more disapproving and stresses that the previous owner threw it away.
Opposites
Word family
- hand-me-down noun
- The general word for any used item passed on to someone else.
- hand down phrasal verb
- To give something you no longer need to a younger or poorer person.
Commonly confused: hand-me-down shirt or handout?
hand-me-down shirt vs handout
A handout is money or food given to someone in need; a hand-me-down is clothing or goods passed on within a family.
Practice
Which sentence uses the phrase correctly?
Choose one answer.
The phrase works as a noun phrase before another noun and takes hyphens: a hand-me-down shirt. Option 2 uses the wrong preposition, and options 3 and 4 have incorrect punctuation.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hand-me-down shirt”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.