1859 F. C. Cozzens Acadia 164 The traveller's Minié-rifle, life-preserver, strapped-up blankets, and hand-bag were stuffed in the sides.

1896 G. B. Shaw Let. 9 Nov. (1965) I. 700 I want to buy a handbag for the journey.

1899 O. Wilde Importance of being Earnest i. 37 ‘Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?..’ ‘In a handbag.’.. ‘A handbag?’

1910 M. I. Ogilvie Reminisc. (transcript of MS) in www.ogilviefamilytree.com (O.E.D. Archive 2017) 13 As we lingered rather depressed over supper, something happened which made him leave his boxes in the hall, and start for Leith with only a handbag.

1921 Med. Pickwick Feb. 43/1 A glance at the stranger nearly caused him to drop his handbag with surprise.

1954 E. H. Sothern Julia Marlowe's Story iv. 53 I picked up the small handbag which contained my wardrobe and make-up.

1992 Economist 8 Aug. 20/3 Under Margaret Thatcher, Labour councils were loony lefties and Tory councils wets, to be bashed with handbag and poll tax.

2012 This Day (Lagos) (Nexis) 6 Apr. Henceforth, no police orderly is permitted to carry the handbag of the man or woman he or she is protecting.

1991 Financial Times 29 June (Weekend section) p. ix/7 Time was when suitable handbaggy colours were deemed to be black, brown, beige and grey.

1995 Face Aug. 7/4 For some time now Zuly at Tiddlywinks has attempted to tart up the handbaggy wilderness by setting up a techno night to blow all others into the Tyne.

2000 Big Issue 28 Feb. 27/4 It's a tight, dancey, handbaggy tune which would probably..[go] down well on ‘Top Of The Pops’.

1952 Winnipeg (Manitoba) Free Press 8 May 2/3 A lady in the audience—apparently a friend of the composer—handbagged a man who clapped before the end of the playing of Pierre Boulez' Piece for Two Pianos.

1982 Economist 7 Aug. 20/3 One of her less reverent backbenchers [sc. Julian Critchley] said of Mrs Thatcher recently that ‘she can't look at a British institution without hitting it with her handbag’. Treasury figures published last week show how good she has proved at handbagging the civil service.

1998 Daily Mail (Nexis) 20 July 4 Mr Bell was very much on his own when he was ‘handbagged’ by Mr Hamilton's formidable wife Christine in an infamous encounter on Knutsford Heath.

2011 Guardian (Nexis) 30 Nov. 8 It was during the period when Mrs Thatcher was handbagging other European leaders, thumping tables and demanding her money back.

1987 Independent 11 May 17/6 No one crosses Margaret Thatcher and gets away with it. And no one is too grand to escape the process of ‘handbagging’, which has been refined to an art under her premiership.

1989 Guardian 21 Feb. 2/8 Wasn't he himself risking a handbagging from Glenys?

2008 Independent 18 Jan. 7/1 Angela Merkel..gave Vladimir Putin a public handbagging at a Russia-EU summit.