Wiktionary
vb. 1 To transmit in succession, as from father to son, or from predecessor to successor. 2 To deliver (the decision of a court, etc.) 3 To forward to the proper officer (the decision of a higher court). 4 (context idiomatic English) To donate (as second hand.)
WordNet
v. passed on, as by inheritance; "This ring was handed down through many generations"
Usage examples of "hand down".
Both author and publisher have had an honorable and efficient part in the great struggle, and are therefore worthy to hand down to the future a record of the perils encountered and the sufferings endured by patriotic soldiers in the prisons of the enemy.
It was at that moment that Lucy screamed, and as she screamed, as luck would have it, she had inadvertently put her hand down on one of the ship's intercom buttons, with the result that her scream was relayed all round the Starship Titanic.
She leaned forward, letting her fingers trail from the cleft in his throat to his chest, cupping her palm atop his nipple and then sliding her hand down to his thigh.
Chrysalis remained stoic until Mackie slid his hand down Misha's stomach and let the coils of intestines spill wetly out over the carpet.
Peggol vez Menk slammed his open hand down on the table beside which Dokhnor of Kellef had died.
I ran my hand down the glossy neck, and patted the dark bay shoulder, and felt the slender, rock-hard forelegs.
After she swallowed three times, Mandy forced her hand down and said, Just another sip.
He could feel a wrongness, almost exactly as if something very dead and very cold had drawn a hand down his spine and then pushed the hand inside him to clutch at his gut.
After she swallowed three times, Mandy forced her hand down and said, ‘.
Easing her hand down, she pulled another safety anchor from her harness and set it against the wall as far to her left as she could reach.
To put it another way, Microsoft can be confident that Thomas Penfield Jackson will not hand down an order that the brains of everyone in the developed world are to be summarily re-programmed.
Secretary of the Treasury Babbinger slammed a hand down on his desk.
Before anyone could mess with the coffin lid, she slapped a hand down right above where Kayean’.
President Harris slammed his hand down on the table and glared at them all in the shocked silence.