Handbags

How to spell handbags

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce handbags

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does handbags mean?

1. nounSmall bags, typically carried by hand or over the shoulder, used to hold personal items.

Handbags in a sentence

• The shop displayed a row of leather handbags near the window.

• She keeps her old handbags in a box at the back of the wardrobe.

Where does handbags come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is simply the plural of 'handbag', a transparent compound of two very old Germanic words. 'Hand' comes from Old English 'hand', a word shared across the Germanic languages for the part of the arm used to grasp and carry. 'Bag' arrived a little later, probably from Old Norse 'baggi', meaning a pack or bundle, before settling into Middle English as a general word for a soft container. The two were joined in the early 1800s to name a small bag carried by hand, originally for travel before it came to mean a woman's purse. Because both parts are everyday words, the spelling holds no real surprises; the only thing to watch is keeping the single, compact word together rather than writing 'hand bags'.

How the word is built

• hand (the body part, used here as 'carried in the hand')
• bag (a soft container)
• -s (plural)