[f. the proper name Stanhope (see below).]
1. A light open one-seated vehicle, formerly made with two wheels, but now commonly with four. First made for the Hon. and Rev. Fitzroy Stanhope (17871864). Often written with small initial.
1825. C. M. Westmacott, Engl. Spy, I. 86. Or in a stanhope come it strong.
1837. W. B. Adams, Carriages, 128. The two-wheeled carriage called a Stanhope is suspended on four of these springs.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xl. The vehicle was not exactly a gig, neither was it a stanhope.
1891. J. S. Winter, Lumley, 13. They found the Stanhope drawn by a big grey awaiting them.
b. Comb.: Stanhope horse, one suitable for a stanhope; Stanhope phaeton, a variety of the stanhope.
1836. Sir G. Stephen, Search of Horse, ix. (1841), 137. I would suggest that the form of a stanhope horse should be carefully considered.
1901. Skrine, Life Sir W. Hunter, xiii. 245. He had purchased a Stanhope phaeton.
2. Stanhope lens, a lens of small diameter with two convex faces of different radii, inclosed in a metallic tube (Knight). Invented by Charles 3rd Earl Stanhope (17531816).
1850. W. King, Permian Fossils, 143. In others they [the punctures] cannot be detected so readily without a Stanhope lens.
1862. J. Wyldes Circ. Sci., I. 65/1. A Stanhope lens of the ordinary form.
3. Stanhope press, a hand printing-press invented by the 3rd Earl Stanhope (17531816).
c. 1805. Earl Stanhope, in Collect., Ser. III. (O.H.S.), 400. The high price of the Stanhope press (compared with that of the common wooden ones) has, by many, been considered as likely to check the sale of them.
1841. Penny Cycl., XIX. 18/1. The accompanying diagram of the Stanhope press.
So Stanhopian a.
1808. Stower, Printers Gram., 54. Judging from former times, when ligatures were used, and abolished because they encumbered the compositor, we much fear the Stanhopian introduction of an, in, of, &c. will not be found to meet with a much more favourable reception. Ibid., 302, 506.