secondhand furniture
- noun
- /ˈsɛkəndˌhænd ˈfɜrnɪtʃər/
:
muebles de segunda mano
- The day after they moved in with nothing but rowed beds, Sally, taking the car the Movement provided, drove along the street of local shops to look for secondhand furniture, and reversing into a parking place was held up by a municipal cleaner, a woman sweeping the gutter muck into a drain.
Examples
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I found a beautiful secondhand furniture set at a local thrift shop that matched my style perfectly.
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I first saw Kate unloading boxes and secondhand furniture from the back of a U-Haul van.
Fiction book (2001) -
She decided to furnish her new apartment with secondhand furniture to save money.
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They donated their old secondhand furniture to help families in need during the winter.
How New
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'furniture that has been owned and used by someone else before' is directly derivable from combining 'secondhand' (previously owned/used) with 'furniture' (household items). This is a straightforward adjective+noun composition following common English patterns (and parallels exist in many languages), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it.
Etymology
Secondhand furniture comes from the image of furniture passing through someone else's hands. The word secondhand means a 'second hand', so the items are 'used' before you buy them. That's why it means furniture that was owned and used by someone else.
