DESCENDAS. Latin; literally, you may descend. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., when a student who has been appointed to declaim in chapel fails in eloquence, memory, or taste, his harangue is usually cut short "by a testy descendas."—Grad. ad Cantab.
DETERMINING. In the University of Oxford, a Bachelor is entitled to his degree of M.A. twelve terms after the regular time for taking his first degree, having previously gone through the ceremony of determining, which exercise consists in reading two dissertations in Latin prose, or one in prose and a copy of Latin verses. As this takes place in Lent, it is commonly called determining in Lent.—Oxf. Guide.
DETUR. Latin; literally, let it be given.
In 1657, the Hon. Edward Hopkins, dying, left, among other donations to Harvard College, one "to be applied to the purchase of books for presents to meritorious undergraduates." The distribution of these books is made, at the commencement of each academic year, to students of the Sophomore Class who have made meritorious progress in their studies during their Freshman year; also, as far as the state of the funds admits, to those members of the Junior Class who entered as Sophomores, and have made meritorious progress in their studies during the Sophomore year, and to such Juniors as, having failed to receive a detur at the commencement of the Sophomore year, have, during that year, made decided improvement in scholarship.—Laws of Univ. at Cam., Mass., 1848, p. 18.
"From the first word in the short Latin label," Peirce says, "which is signed by the President, and attached to the inside of the cover, a book presented from this fund is familiarly called a Detur."—Hist. Harv. Univ., p. 103.
Now for my books; first Bunyan's Pilgrim,
(As he with thankful pleasure will grin,)
Tho' dogleaved, torn, in bad type set in,
'T will do quite well for classmate B——,
And thus with complaisance to treat her,
'T will answer for another Detur.
The Will of Charles Prentiss.
Be not, then, painfully anxious about the Greek particles, and sit not up all night lest you should miss prayers, only that you may have a "Detur," and be chosen into the Phi Beta Kappa among the first eight. Get a "Detur" by all means, and the square medal with its cabalistic signs, the sooner the better; but do not "stoop and lie in wait" for them.—A Letter to a Young Man who has just entered College, 1849, p. 36.
Or yet,—though 't were incredible,
—say hast obtained a detur!
Poem before Iadma, 1850.
DIG. To study hard; to spend much time in studying.
Another, in his study chair,
Digs up Greek roots with learned care,—
Unpalatable eating.—Harv. Reg., 1827-28, p. 247.