1. A vehicle with four horses driven by one person.
1793. European Mag, XXIII. June, 466/2.
| I mount my car, and take my magic wand; | |
| Swift thro’ Hyde Park I drive my four-in-hand. |
1825. Disraeli, in Smiles, Life J. Murray (1891), II. xxvi. 188. The four-in-hands of the Yorkshire squires.
1842. Tennyson, Walking to Mail, 103.
| As quaint a four-in-hand | |
| As you shall see—three pyebalds and a roan. |
fig. 1837. Longf., in Life (1891), I. 277. This four-in-hand of outlandish animals [the foreign instructors (at Harvard College)], all pulling the wrong way, except one,—this gives me more trouble than anything else.
2. quasi-adv. With a four-in-hand.
1812. W. Combe (Dr. Syntax), Picturesque, xx. 145.
| Thus off they went—and four-in-hand, | |
| Dash’d briskly tow’rds the promis’d land. |
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., II. ix. 276. He drives them down four-in-hand.
3. attrib. and Comb., as four-in-hand club, -driver, -driving; four-in-hand tie, a kind of neck-tie.
1849. E. E. Napier, Excurs. S. Africa, I. 169. The spirited team of which is managed in a style that completely outdoes the most skilful knights of the ‘ribbons,’ the oldest stage coachman, or most renowned members of the *‘Four-in-hand’ Club at home.
1877. Mar. M. Grant, Sun-Maid, ii. He departed, happy in considering himself equal to the best whip in the Four-in-Hand Club.
1812. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. Jan., 153/1.
| Duke, Lords, and Squires, Scamps, Padders, Divers, | |
| ‘Men on the lay,’ not worth a shilling, | |
| Flash *Four-in-Hand and Donkey drivers, | |
| Gave Champion Crib this Cup, for milling. |
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, x. Boxing. rat-hunting, the fives’ court, and *four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our British aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these noble sciences.
1892. Pall Mall G., 11 Oct., 7/2. You do not need … slippers, nor *four-in-hand ties.
b. quasi-adj.
1799. Han. More, Fem. Educ. (ed. 4), I. 75. At once produced the bold and independent beauty, the intrepid female, the hoyden, the huntress, and the archer; the swinging arms, the confident address, the regimental, and the four-in-hand.
1807–8. W. Irving, Salmagundi (1824), 37. It is excessively pleasant to hear a couple of these four in hand gentlemen detail their exploits over a bottle.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Cov., xx. 263. The gentlemen, even the stiffest of them, turned boldly round, to survey such a phenomenon as the tobacco-smoking, four-in-hand Miss Coventry.
