duenna and dudeen and droshky and draeaenas and dowsabell and dispiteous and despitious and dragoman

Having had a couple of deep draughts of refreshing words, I think I should return to the prosaic task of going through the dictionary here. Let's only pick up one word from 351-370 before going on to the next group.

A Word on Dispiteous

The OED tells us that dispiteous originally derived from despiteous, meaning "full of despite, contempt, or ill-will." Chaucer, in the Knight's Tale could speak of "a proud dispiteous man," i.e., a man full of ill will. It doesn't take long for a person full of contempt for others to do cruel things to them. Hence the OED says that despiteous gradually passed into the sense of "pitiless, merciless" or "cruel." From 1549, "Warre is so cruell and despiteous a thyng." Unless you count Chaucer's quotation, dispiteous in the sense of "pitiless" or "merciless" derives from the early 19th century. From 1803, "The felon wreck'd dispiteous wrong and shame." Or "This dispiteous and abominable tyrant." The word should have lots of play in 2005, where people receive dispiteous wages and experience dispiteous treatment and inflict dispiteous remarks or tasks on other people. Gene Pitney might have sung about a town without pity, but characteristic of our age are dispiteous socieites.

The List

Ready to return? Let's hit it. A dominie is a clergyman and a dominicker is a dominique, defined as any of a US breed of domestic chickens with a rose comb, yellow legs, and barred plumage. With all respect to Frank Perdue, I will move on. A dongle is a small device that plugs into a computer and serves as an adapter (why have I never heard of it?) while a dornick is a stone small enough to throw. But then, the Collegiate says, "also; a large piece of rock." Huh? Small enough to throw but a large piece of rock. Well, I think the OED is the root of the problem, for the second word under dornick is "a pebble, stone or small boulder." What can you expect from the Collegiate if the OED gives us such a definition? Again it leads to my view of how to create language. Develop words, press (or impress) them into service, squeeze them, caress them, massage them, and then you have something different from where you started.

A dossal/dossel is an ornamental cloth hung behind and above an altar. I was hoping to find a nice picture in the Century, but it defines it more completely in lieu of a picture. "A hanging of stuff, silk, satin, damask..." These embroidered hangings are often owned as a set and used in churches according to the season of the year. I was a pastor several years ago, but never knew if we had dossals. We had a reredos, however, over which there was quite a political fight. Seventeen years (this month) later I returned to the church and the reredos was still there, unmoved, a testimony possibly to the immutability of God. People come and go; pastors are ephemeral, but the reredos endureth forever.

A dotterel is a Eurasian plover formerly common in England, while dotal means "relating to dowry." I suppose that just as one has a festal garb, one might have a dotal settlement or agreement. But if dotal refers to dowries, dottle is the unburned and partially burned tobacco in the bowl of a pipe. The Century helpfully points out that a dottle is often put on top of fresh tobacco when refilling. I will remember that advice the next time I settle into the overstuffed chair with my patched curduroy jacket and lecture to students.

Someone douce is sober or sedate while a douceur is a conciliatory gift. Douroucouli, which the dictionary helpfully points out comes from an unidentified Indian langauge in Venezuela (Ph.D. students looking for a topic--take note!), means an "owl monkey.," while doux champagne is very sweet champagne. I wonder if all these words next to each other in the dictionary, relating not at all to each other, is like the living situation of most people in urban neighborhoods today. There is no rhyme or reason, certainly no reason, why many people are living in the same block as each other. One may be a tattoo artist, one an investment banker, one a drug dealer and one a pastor (and maybe they mix and match). Isn't that the way words are? But then, sometimes, in sturdy midwest towns you have all the relatives in a two block radius, so that little Billy can run to great-grandma Jane's house in a matter of seconds. So, when we get to many of the "disses" or "ims" or "uns" we have related words tumbling one over the other.

A Few More Words

A dowitcher, to be distinguished surely from a dowager, is a long-billed wading bird while a dowsabel is a sweetheart. I haven't heard the term in the circles in which I travel, and the Collegiate suggests that it is obsolete. The OED says it is an English form (through the French douce et belle) of the female name Dulcibella. Shakespeare even gets into the act, humorously using the term in the Comedy of Errors: "Where Dowsabell did claime me for her husband." Dracaenas are trees of the agave family, while a dragee (dra ZHA) is a sugar-coated nut. I like the word dragoman, a word as complex in its derivations as the whorls on our fingers (may I call it a "whorled word"?). Behind the word, which means "interpreter" or "guide" in countries which are of an Arabic, Turkic or Persian language, is the Arabic word "targum," which to those who know Hebrew, Aramaic or other semitic languages is an Aramaic translation/interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Drammock is another Scottish word, this one meaning "raw oatmeal mixed with cold-water." With words like that, you really don't have to wonder anymore why the Scots developed such a dour theology. Then there is dree, the Scottish word for endure, which they have to do a lot of there, and a drogue is a sea anchor. A droshky is a two or four-whelled Russian carriage, while drugget is wool fabric for clothing. To return to the culture of pipe-smoking, a dudeen is a short tobacco pipe made of clay (I have no idea if anyone uses one), whereas a duenna is a elderly woman who is a governess.

Enough for now.

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