constant ridicule to our early draImatic writers. See particularly As you like it, v, 4, and Ben Jonson's Devil is an Ass, iii, 3.

The bastinado! a most proper and sufficient dependance, warranted by the great Caranza. B. Jons. Ev. M. in his H., i, 5. Your high offers Taught by the masters of dependencies, That by compounding differences 'tween others, Supply their own necessities, with me Will never carry't. B. & Fl. Eld. Bro., v, 1. You will not find there Your masters of dependencies, to take up A drunken brawl. Massing. Maid of Hon., i, 1. This office, of master of dependencies, Meercraft pretends to have formed into a regular court, in the play of the Devil's an Ass, above cited. The prosecution and termination of a dependance are very humorously represented by Beaumont and Fletcher, in the fifth act of Love's Pilgrimage, the conclusion of which is

And forsaking his couch or pallet that lay upon the very ground (as being risen when it was now midnight) in making supplication and prayer unto the gods by the meanes of certaine depulsorie sacrifices.

Holland's Ammianus Marcellinus, 1609.
To root up.

To DERACINATE, v.

While that the coulter rusts That should deracinate such savag'ry. Hen. V, v, 2. Divert, and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure. Tro. and Cr., i, 3. †DERBY-ALE. Apparently a choice ale in Elizabeth's time. Sir Lionel Rash, in Greene's Tu Quoque, says,

I have sent my daughter this morning as far as Pimlico to fetch a draught of Derby ale, that it may fetch a colour in her cheeks.

†DERISORY. Derisive. The term is used in a pamphlet dated 1646, Brit. Bibl., i, 309.

DERNE, adj. Secret. From the Saxon dyrnan, to hide. So Tyrwhitt explains it in Chaucer ; and so it may mean in the following passage:

But look how soon they heard of Holoferne Their courage quail'd, and they began to derne. Hudson [Du Bartas], in Engl. Parn., cited by G. Mason. DERNFUL, as used by Spenser, or his friend, L. Bryskett, seems to mean dismal, or sad.

The birds of ill presage this lucklesse change foretold
By dernfull noise.
Thestylis, v. 89.

Todd's Spenser, viii, p. 76. DERNLY, adv. Sadly, or mournfully, in the first of the following passages; severely, rather, in the second.

Had not the ladie, which by him stood bound,
Dernly unto her called to abstain

From doing him to die. Spens. P. Q., III, xii, 34.
Seeking adventures hard, to exercise

Their puissance, whilom full dernly tried.

F. Q., III, i, 14.

DEROGATE, adj., for derogated, degraded, degenerated.

Dry up in her the organs of increase,
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her.

Lear, i, 4. DEROGATELY, adv. With derogation.

That I should

Once name you derogately, when to sound your name
It not concern'd me.
Ant. and Cl., ii, 2.

DERRICK. The name of the common hangman, at the time when some of our old plays were produced.

Pox o' the fortune-teller! Would Derrick had been
his fortune seven years ago!-to cross my love thus.
Puritan, iv, 1, Suppl. to Sh., ii, 602.
He rides circuit with the devil, and Derrick must be
his host, and Tyborne the inne at which he will light.
Belman of Lond., 1616.
It is asserted in an old ballad, that he
had been condemned for a rape, and
was saved by the earl of Essex :
Derick, thou know'st at Coles I sav'd
Thy life lost for a rape there done,
Where thou thyself canst testifie

Thine owne hand three and twenty hung.
Ballad, entitled, Upon the Earle of Essex his Death.
Speaking of thieves condemned to be
hanged, Gayton says,

And a father all these have, Derich, or his successor,
and the mother of the grand family, Maria Sciss-
Marsupia, (Moll Cutpurse) who is seldom troubled at
the loss of any of them, having many, and to spare.
Festivous Notes, p. 120.
It seems therefore that in 1650, when
those Notes were published, Derrick

was dead. From this wight was formed the mock name of Derrickjastroes, in Healy's Discovery of a New World.

This is inhabited only with serjeants, beadles, deputyconstables, and Derrick-jastroes.

Let her by proofe of that which she has fylde
For her own breast, this mother's joy descrive.
Spens. F. Q., VI, xii, 21.
A mirror make likewise of me thou maist,
If thou my life, and dealings, wilt descrive.

Mirr. for Mag., Caracalla, p. 174. For who can livelier descrive me than I myselfe? Chaloner's Moria Enc., A 2.

P. 174.

and other executioners." DERRING-DO. Deeds of arms, warlike enterprise. Literally daring deed.

For ever, who in derring-do were dread,
The lofty verse of hem was loved aye.

Spens. Shep. Kal., Sept., 65. Hence also derring-doers, for warlike heroes, by the same author. F. Q., F. Q.. IV, ii, 38. See Todd. Spenser has also derring for contention, in his Eclogue of December. DESCANT, s. What is now called variation in music. The altering the movement and manner of an air by additional notes and ornaments, without changing the subject; which has been well defined to be musical paraphrase. The subject thus varied, was called the plain song, or ground. See PLAIN-SONG, and PRICK-SONG.

Good faith, sir, all the ladies in the courte do plainly report,

That without mention of them you can make no
sporte :

They are your playne song to sing descant upon.
Damon and Pithias, O. Pl., i, 182.
Lingua, thou strik'st too much upon one string,
Thy tedious plain-song grates my tender ears.
Ling. "Tis plain indeed, for Truth no descant needs,
Una's her name, she cannot be divided.

Lingua, O. Pl., v, 119. Metaphorically, a discourse formed on a certain theme, like variations on a musical air:

And look you get a pray'r-book in your hand,
And stand between two churchmen, good my lord,
For on that ground I'll make a holy descant.

Rich. III, iii, 7.

See GROUND. To DESCANT, from the above. To make division or variation on any particular subject. Originally accented like the noun from which it was formed; but now mixed with the class of verbs regularly accented on the last syllable, and in that form not obsolete. See Elements of Orthoepy, p. 164.

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on my own deformity.
Rich. III, i, 1.
Cam'st thou for this, vain boaster, to survey me,
To descant on my strength, and give thy verdict?
Milton, Sams. Agon., 1227.
To describe.

To DESCRIVE.

cover.

Eyed and praysd Armida past the while Through the desirefull troupes, and wist it well. Godfrey of Bulloigne, 1594. †To DESPEND. To expend. Som noble men in Spain can despend 500001.

Howell's Familiar Letters, 1650.

DESSE. A desk; and of the same origin, viz., disch, Germ. for a table. And next to her sate goodly Shamefastnesse,

Ne ever durst her eyes from ground upreare,
Ne ever once did look up from her desse.

Spens. F. Q., IV, x, 50.
The word was used by Chaucer, but
not quite in the same sense. See
Todd.

TO DETERMINATE. To end, to bring to a conclusion.

The fly-slow hours shall not determinate

The dateless limit of thy dear exile. Rich. II, i, 3. The adjective determinate is also used by Shakespeare in the sense of concluded:

Sonnet 87.

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
To DETRACT.

Sometimes used in the

sense of to avoid; from detrecto, Lat., and therefore more properly to detrect.

Whereupon the French fleete made towardes the English men, who mynding not to detract the battel, sharply encounter their enimies.

Holinsh., vol., ii, B b 7. Which thing when Theages perceived that Cnemon did detract--he said to him.

Coldocke's Heliodorus, D 3.

Do not detrect; you know th' authority
Is mine, and I will exercise it swiftly,
If you provoke me.

B. Jons. New Inn, ii, 6.

Detrect is here the old reading.

+The Danes hearing that the Scottes were come, detracted no time, but foorthwith prepared to give battayle. Holinshed, 1577. The DEVIL RIDES ON A FIDDLESTICK. A proverbial expression, apparently meant to express anything new, unexpected, and strange.

Heigh, heigh the Devil rides upon a fiddlestick;
what's the matter?
1 Hen. IV, ii, 4.

This is said on the sudden interruption
of the Hostess by the arrival of the

they were content with giving imaginary properties to real objects, but not always. To DIAPER, v. To variegate, or adorn with figures, like diaper. From diapre, a French heraldic term, which Du Cange derives from diasperus, in low Latin, for a very fine sort of cloth.

Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along,
And diapred lyke the discolord mead.
Spens. Epithal., 1. 50.
Whose locks, in snaring nets, were like the rayes
Wherewith the sun doth diaper the seas.
Brown's Past., B, I, song i, p. 17.
I went alone to take one of all the other fragrant
flowers that diapred this valley.

DEVOR, for devoir. Duty.

But I was chiefly bent to poets' famous art,
To them with all my devor I my studie did convert.
Turberville's Poems, H 5.

+DEVOTORING. Adulterous.
What a devotoring rogue this is! He would have been
at both.
The Wizard, a Play, 1640.
†To DEVOW. To devote.

The besieged, who were a picked number of valiant men, and furnished with store everie way, could by no allurements be induced to yeeld, but as making full account either to win the victorie, or devow and betake themselves to be consumed with the ashes of their countrey, withstood their enemies.

Holland's Ammianus Marcellinus, 1609. +DEUZAN. A species of apple.

Nor is it ev'ry apple I desire,

Nor that which pleases ev'ry palate best;

'Tis not the lasting deuzan I require,

Nor yet the red-cheek'd queening I request.
Quarles's Emblems.

+DEXTERICAL. Dexterous.

Divine Plato affirmes, that those have most dexterical

wits, who are wont to be stird up with a heavenly fury. Optick Glasse of Humors, 1639. DIABLO. The devil; an exclamation. The Spanish name for that personage. Who's that that rings the bell? Diablo, ho! The town will rise.

Othell., ii, 3. Edw. II, O. Pl., ii, 336. DIACLETES. An imaginary precious stone, thus described:

Diablo! what passions call you these?

For as the precious stone diacletes, though it have many rare and excellent soveraignties in it, yet loseth them all, if it be put in a dead man's mouth.

Braith. Engl. Gent., p. 273. This, I believe, is a remarkable instance of a practice, if not invented, at least most used by Lyly, in his Euphues and other works, that of imagining a natural object, animate or inanimate, and ascribing to it certain curious properties, merely for the sake of introducing it into a simile or illustration. Instances might be given to a considerable extent. Sometimes

Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, B 2.
A gardener's setting stick,
usually made of part of the handle of
a spade, cut to a point. The word is
still in use among gardeners.
I'll not put

The dibble in the earth to set one slip of them.
Wint. T., iv, 3.
Through cunning, with dibble, rake, mattock, and spade,
By line and by level trim garden is made.
Tusser, Marches Husbandry, p. 70.

DICH. Apparently a corruption of do it, or may it do.

Much good dich thy good heart, Apemantus.
Tim. Ath., i, 2.

Though this has the appearance of
being a familiar and colloquial form,
it has not been met with elsewhere;
which is a circumstance rather extra-
ordinary. Nor is it known to be pro-
vincial.

DICK-A-TUESDAY. The name of a hobgoblin, coupled in the following line with Will-o'th-wisp. It has not been met with elsewhere.

Ghosts, hobgoblins, Will-with-wispe, or Dicke-aTuesday. Sampson's Vow Breaker, 1636. DICKER. The quantity of ten, of any commodity; as a dicker of hides was ten hides, a dicker of iron ten bars. See Fragm. Antiq., p. 192. Probably from decas, Lat.

Behold, said Pas, a whole dicker of wit. Pembr. Arc., p. 393. +I have spent but a groat; a penny for my two jades, a penny to the poor, a penny pot of ale, and a penny cake for my man and me, a dicker of cow-hides cost Heywood, First P. of King Ed. IV, 1600. DICKON, or DICCON. A familiar form of the name Richard. Thus in the old rhyme against Richard the Third:

me.

Jocky of Norfolk be not too bold,

For Dickon thy master is bought and sold. Rich. III, v, 3. One of the characters in Gammer

Gurton's Needle is Diccon, the Bedlem. O. Pl., vol. ii.

DIDDEST. The second person of did, the pret. of do; now only used in the contracted form didst.

And thou, Posthumus, that diddest set up
My disobedience 'gainst the king my father.

Cymb., iii, 4.

That I shall live, and tell him to his teeth Thus diddest thou.

Haml., iv, 7.

occur.

†DIE. To die in the pain, to die in the attempt to do a thing.

Amongst whom were a v. M. women, wholy bent to revenge the villanies done to theyr persons by the Romains, or to die in the payne. Holinshed, 1577. †DIEGO, DON. A popular name for a Spaniard. See Webster's Works,

ii, 298.

Next followes one, whose lines aloft doe raise
Don Coriat, chiefe Diego of our daies.

To praise thy booke, or thee, he knowes not whether,
It makes him study to praise both, or neither.
Taylor's Workes, 1630.
The method I purpose to use, shall be, first to expose
your faults (I do not mean all), for that were as Diego
said of the poor of his parish, All the parish.
Clifford's Notes upon Dryden, 1687.
The phrase was similarly used by the
French writers of the same age.

C'est là qu'on délibérera
Comment la France guérira,
Et non point en vos conférences
De dangereuses conséquences,
Et dont le seignor don Diego
A tiré d'étranges ergo.

Les Courriers de la Fronde, ad. Moreau, i, 57. DIET. To take diet, to be under a regimen for a disease, which anciently was cured by severe discipline of that kind.

To weep like a young wench that had buried her
grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet.

Two Gent., ii, 1.
Priscus had tane the diet all the while.
Springes to catch Woodcocks, a Collect of Epigr., 1606.
Fore the heavens, I look as pale ever since as if I had
ta'en the diet this spring.

Marston's What you will, iii, 1, Anc. Dr., ii, 242.
See TUB-FAST.

†DIET-BAG.

His differing fury. DIFFICILE. Difficult.

Chapm. Il., ix, 543. Lat.

No matter so difficile for man to find out,
No business so dangerous, no person so stowt, &c.
New Custome, O. Pl., i, 273.

Hard or difficile be those thynges that be goodly or
Taverner's Adagies, D 5.

honest.

This word was once common. See Todd. +DIFFICULTLY. With difficulty.

They nourish much, but difficultly digest, and their nourishment is very bad, because they themselves are nourished in marshes.

Passenger of Benvenuto, 1612. To DIFFIDE. To distrust. Diffido, Lat.

For this word, which Dryden has
used, but which was common in older
authors, see Todd.

DIFFUSED. Wild, irregular, confused.
Let them from forth a saw-pit rush at once,
With some diffused song.
Mer. W. W., iv, 4.

To swearing, and stern looks, diffus'd attire,
And ev'ry thing that seems unnatural. Hen. V, 2.
I have seen an English gentleman so diffused in his
suits, his doublet being for the weare of Castile, his
hose for Venice, &c. Greene's Farewell to Folie.

So Kent, in Lear, i, 4, talks of diffusing his speech, that is, making it so disordered that it may be disguised. DIFFUSEDLY. Irregularly, wildly, neglectful of dress.

you.

Some physitians being mett together to consult about a patient, itt was concluded a dyet bagg should bee made for him, for which they advisd many ingredients, and some would have had more; and one merrily interposd, as wiser than the rest, and bid them putt in a haycock, and then to bee sure hee would have enough.

†DIET-BREAD. A sort of sweet cake, for making which we find the following directions in the receipt books of the 17th cent.

And further, his majesty professed, that were he to invite the devil to a dinner, he should have these three dishes. 1. a pig, 2. a pole of ling, and mustard, and 3. a pipe of tobacco for digesture.

Apothegms of King James, 1669, p. 4.

flower twice or thrice drest, and 1 pound and a quarter of fine sugar finely beaten, and take seven new laid eggs, and put away the yolk of 1 of them and beat them very well, and put 4 or 5 spoonfuls of rose-water amongst them, and then put them in an alablaster or

pare; to put on.

Soon after them, all dauncing in a row,
The Comely virgins came, with girlands dight.'
Spens. F. Q., I, xii, 6.

But ere he could his armour on him dight, Or get his shield. Ibid., I, vii, 8. The signs of death upon the prince appear, With dust and blood his locks were loathly dight.

Milton has used the word:

And in a dimble near, even as a place divine.
Ibid., song 26, p. 1169.

Dingle is still in use.

Storied windows richly dight. Il Penseroso. +And as for the cloth of my ladies, Hen. Cloughe putt it to a shereman to dight, and he sold the cloth and ran away; and yet after Hen. mett with him, and gart him be sett in the countre, till he founde sewerte to answer at the Gildehall for the cloth.

Plumpton Correspondence, p. 36. DIGNE, or DYGNE. Worthy. Make cheer much digne, good Robert. Ordinary, O. Pl., x, 236. All the worlde universally offreth me, daie by daie, far dearer and more digne sacrifices than theirs are. Chaloner's Moria Encom., K 2.

To DIGRESS. To deviate, or differ. This word and digression are now only applied to the arrangement of matter in discourse. Thus the metaphorical sense has supplanted the literal.

Thy noble shape is but a form in wax, Digressing from the valour of a man. Rom. and Jul, iii, 3. This is Johnson's 4th sense, and is rightly said to be no longer in use. DIGRESSION. Deviation.

my

I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may example my digression by some mighty precedent. Love's L. L., i, 2. Then my digression is so vile and base, That it will live engraven in face. Shaks. Rape of Lucrece, Suppl., i, 485. DILLING. The same as darling (dearling), a favorite; but used rather for the female, and seems to be kind of fondling diminutive. Minshew explains it a wanton, but there is nothing in its origin to convey that meaning, even if, with him, we derived it from diligo.

a

Whilst the birds billing Each one with his dilling The thickets still filling With amorous notes. Drayt. Nymphal., 3, p. 1469. Saint Hellen's name doth bear, the dilling of her Polyolb., song 2. To make the match with my eldest daughter, my wife's dilling, whom she longs to call madam. Eastw. Hoe, O. Pl., iv, 206.

mother.

up

DIMBLE. The same as dingle, that is, a narrow valley between two steep hills.

Within a bushy dimble she doth dwell,
Down in a pit, o'ergrown with brakes and briars.
B. Jons. Sad Sheph., ii, 8.

Mr. Sympson thought it necessary to change the word to dingle, against the testimony of all the copies; but dimble has been found in several passages of Drayton:

And satyres that in slades and gloomie dimbles dwell.
Polyolb., song 2, p. 690.

To

Most monster-like be shewn,

For poor'st diminutives, to dolts. Ant. and Cl., iv, 10. Capell reads, "for doits," which would explain the former word; "for dolts" is the original reading, which has been changed as above.

DING. To strike violently down, to dash.

Brought in a fresh supply of halberdiers,
Which paunch'd his horse, and ding'd him to the
ground.
Spanish Trag., O. Pl., iii, 133.
The hellish prince, grim Pluto, with his mace
Ding down my soul to hell. Battle of Alcazar, D 4.
Is ding'd to hell, and vultures eat his heart.
Marston's Satires.

This while our noble king,
His broad sword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding.

Drayt. Ballad of Aginc., p. 1380.
+The butchers axe (like great Alcides bat)
Dings deadly downe ten thousand thousand flat.
Taylor's Workes, 1630.
+It stor'd with onions, figs, and garlick,
With scraps of bread, it knows no fare like;
For these the neighbours do not swagger,
Nor huff, and ding, and draw the dagger.

+DING-DING.

Poor Robin, 1709. A term of endearment. Loe, heere I come a woing my ding, ding, Loe, heere we come a suing my darling, Loe, heere I come a praying, to bide-a, bide-a. Tragedy of Hoffman, 1631. DING-THRIFT. A spendthrift; one who dings or drives away thrift, that is prudence and economy.

No, but because the ding-thrift now is poore, And knowes not where i' th' world to borrow more. Herrick, Works, p. 186. And in Wit's Bedlam, 1617, the dingthrift and the miser are satirised for their opposite extremes of character. †DINNERLY, adj. Appertaining to dinner, attending upon dinner.

A gent. of her majesties privi-chamber comming to a merry recorder of London, about some state affaire, met him by chance in the street going to dinner to the lord maior, and profferred to deliver him his encharge, but the dinnerly officer was so hasty on his way that he refused to heare him, poasting him over to another season, the gent. notwithstanding still urged him to audience, without discovering either who he was or what he would.

Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.

DINNER-TIME. The proper hour for dinner is laid down by Thomas Cogan, a physician, in a book entitled the Haven of Health, printed in 1584. It is curious to observe how far we have since departed from the rule.