handsel

noun

1. (obsolete)A lucky omen.
2. A gift given at New Year, or at the start of some enterprise or new situation, meant to ensure good luck.

   “their first good handsel of breath in this world”

   “Our present tears here, not our present laughter, / Are but the handsels of our joys hereafter.”

3. (archaic)Price, payment; especially the first installment of a series.

   “That whoso hardy hand on her doth lay , It dearly shall abye and death for handsel pay”

   “"I see the first handsel that God gives them on their voyage to the Land of Promise; thirst and bitterness." (From Contemplations, Book Five, Contemplation 1, The Waters of Marah (Found in volume 1 of The Works of Joseph Hall, edited by Peter Hall, published by Talboys, Oxford, 1837, page 88))”

verb

1. (transitive)To give a handsel to.

   “She would leave a gold guinea to hansel the baby.”

2. (transitive)To inaugurate by means of some ceremony; to break in.

   “And it is better undecently to faile in hanseling the nuptiall bed, full of agitation and fits, by waiting for some or other fitter occasion, and more private opportunitie, lest sudden and alarmed, than to fall into a perpetuall miserie, by apprehending an astonishment and desperation of the first refusall.”

3. (transitive)To use or do for the first time, especially so as to make fortunate or unfortunate; to try experimentally.

   “Indeed there is no contrivance of our body, but some good man in Scripture hath hanselled it with prayer.”

   “The lads, dressed like their papas, seemed uncomfortable in their new clothes (many that day handselled their first pair of boots), […].”

   “[…]the success of the one did not handsel usurpation[…]of the other's.”