Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as hamper, 1.
  • noun Same as hanap, 1.
  • noun A receptacle for documents or valuable articles, formerly used in England. It was often made of wickerwork, and sometimes covered with leather.
  • noun [capitalized] An office (in full, the Hanaper Office) of the English Court of Chancery, from which various writs were formerly sent out.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A kind of basket, usually of wickerwork, and adapted for the packing and carrying of articles; a hamper.
  • noun an office of the English court of chancery in which writs relating to the business of the public, and the returns to them, were anciently kept in a hanaper or hamper.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A kind of basket, usually of wickerwork, and adapted for the packing and carrying of articles; a hamper

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Late Latin hanaperium ("a large vase"), from hanaus ("vase, bowl, cup") (whence French hanap); of Frankish origin; compare Old North German hnapf, German Napf, akin to Anglo Saxon hnæp ("cup, bowl"). Compare hamper, nappy

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Examples

  • But I cannot distinctly connect the _hanap_ of the exhibition with _hanaper_: and I perhaps ought to look in another direction for its true signification and etymology.

    Notes and Queries, Number 29, May 18, 1850 Various

  • Now I cannot find _hanap_ in any dictionary to which I have access; but I find _hanaper_ in every one.

    Notes and Queries, Number 29, May 18, 1850 Various

  • Another kind of receptacle for records was a small turned box, called a "skippet," and another was the "hanaper," or hamper, a basket made of twigs or wicker-work.

    Forty Centuries of Ink 1904

  • I had no guess; and I seized on the idea of that mystic shoe-horn with delight, even as, a little later, I should have written flagon, chalice, hanaper, beaker, or any word that might have appealed to me at the moment as least contaminate with mean associations.

    Essays of Travel Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • John Hales, clerk of the hanaper, a learned and able man, and, like all who espoused this party, a zealous protestant, had written, and secretly circulated, a book in defence of the claims of the lady Catherine, and he had also procured opinions of foreign lawyers in favor of the validity of her marriage.

    Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth Lucy Aikin 1822

  • ‘housewife’ and ‘hussey’; ‘hanaper’ and ‘hamper’; ‘puisne’ and ‘puny’;

    English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846

  • This fee appears to have been paid, notwithstanding the express terms of the charter that no fee great or small should be paid or made or by any means given to the hanaper to the king’s use.

    London and the Kingdom - Volume I

Comments

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  • a basket, or similar container

    October 17, 2008

  • "From his command post in the doorway of the Great Hall, Mister Pouncey pondered lists of secretaries and seal-keepers, council clerks and sergeants-at-arms. Was the Clerk of Petty Bag senior to a gentleman groom? he wondered. How important was the Keeper of the Hanaper, or the Chafe Wax?"

    John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk, p 214

    November 10, 2012

  • In Summer sweet passions can occur:

    There's many a sensual plan astir,

    So fruits of the season

    And wine beyond reason

    Fill young lover's hopeful hanaper.

    July 29, 2017