Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

Adj.

Consisting of four horses controlled by one person;

as, a

four-in-hand

team

; drawn by four horses driven by one person;

as, a

four-in-hand

coach

–

Noun.

A team of four horses driven by one person; also, a vehicle drawn by such a team.

As quaint a

four-in-hand

As you shall see.

Tennyson.

A four-in-hand (knot).

four-in-hand ‎(plural four-in-hands)

A carriage drawn by four horses controlled by one driver; a coach-and-four.
- 1890, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Vintage 2007, p. 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.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:
  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.
(chiefly US) A slip knot with one end hanging in front of the other; a simple necktie.
- 2013, A Scott Berg, Wilson, Berkley 2014, p. 293:
  He wore a black frock coat and light trousers, his cravat a gray four-in-hand.