four-in-hand (plural four-in-hands)

1. A carriage drawn by four horses controlled by one driver.

   Synonym: coach-and-four

   • 1890, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Vintage, published 2007, page 62:

     ‘I must see him!’ he exclaimed; but at that moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the Park.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.

2. (chiefly US) A slip knot with one end hanging in front of the other; a simple necktie.

   Synonym: schoolboy knot

   • 2013, A Scott Berg, Wilson, Berkley, published 2014, page 293:

     He wore a black frock coat and light trousers, his cravat a gray four-in-hand.

• Four-in-hand knot on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Four-in-hand (carriage) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia