Akademik

n.

A used object, especially an article of clothing, passed from a younger person to an older person. — adj. — v.

Until knock-off time at 5 pm from his Little India den, he maintains contact with the 'outside' world via an old, 'hand-me-up' Nokia mobile phone left behind by his son, and the occasional news buzz on the Iraqi crisis crackling through his radio.

— Tan Shzr Ee, "A nobody whom everybody knows," The Straits Times (Singapore), March 16, 2003

Younger kids know the pain of hand-me-downs, the clothes they inherit from bigger siblings. Sleeves hang below the wrists, pants slide around the hips and style seems like the magazine selection in a waiting room — outdated.

But some families put a twist on the trend. Instead of hand-me-downs, they share hand-me-ups. Older offspring who tire of wearing the same old threads pass garments to their parents, who might not be as picky about fit or fashion.

Pat Sirek's "consumer-society kids," two grown daughters and a son, don't believe in wearing hand-me-downs.

"I, on the other hand, care about saving a buck," said Sirek, 47, of West St. Paul, Minn. "If it's still good and it fits me, I take it."

— Michele M. Melendez, "Frugal families 'hand-me-up' when size is right," The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), September 15, 2002

Mrs. Aurora Aquino, 76, dressed in a bright yellow shirt that she said was a "hand-me-up" from her daughter — and sporting a small pin with her murdered son's picture on it — fanned herself in the heat and said she had no regrets about returning to the same place where he was shot.

— Janet Cawley, "Filipino freedom flight brings home exiles who fled Marcos," Chicago Tribune, March 20, 1986

In the world of used — but still useful — items a hand-me-up is the directional opposite of a hand-me-down (a phrase the Oxford English Dictionary dates all the way back to an 1874 book of slang).