dearne, dearnful, dearnly; see [dern, dernful, dernly].
debate, to combat, fight. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 6; Lucrece, 1421. F. debatre, ‘to debate, contend’, (Cotgr.).
debel, to conquer in war, defeat. Milton, P. R. iv. 605; Warner, Albion’s England, bk. ii, ch. 8, st. 53. L. delellare (Virgil).
debenter, a voucher given in the Exchequer certifying to the recipient the sum due to him, a ‘debenture’. Edwards, Damon and Pithias, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 77. See Dict.
deboshed, debased, corrupted, ‘debauched’. Temp. iii. 2. 29; King Lear, i. 4. 263; vilified, All’s Well, v. 3. 208; deboshtly, licentiously, Heywood, Dialogue 4 (Works, vi. 173); ‘Desbaucher, to debosh’, Cotgrave. In use in Scotland (EDD.).
decard, to ‘discard’, throw away a card, in a card-game; ‘Can you decard?’, Machin, Dumb Knight, iv (Phylocles).
decimo sexto, a term applied to a small book, in which each leaf is one-sixteenth of the whole sheet of paper; hence, fig., a diminutive person or thing; ‘My dancing braggart in decimo sexto’, B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, i. 1. (Mercury); ‘One bound up in decimo sexto’, Massinger, Maid of Honour, ii. 2 (Sylli). See Stanford.
deck, a pack of cards. 3 Hen. VI, v. i. 44; Peele, Edw. I (ed. Dyce, p. 339); ‘Pride deales the Deck, whilst Chance doth choose the Card’, Barnfield, Sheph. Content, viii (NED.). See Nares. In prov. use in various parts of England, also in Ireland and America (EDD.).
decline, to turn aside, to swerve. Bible, Ps. cxix. 157; to turn a person aside from, to divert, Beaumont and Fl., Valentinian, iii. 1; Massinger, Maid of Honour, i. 1 (Roberto); to undervalue, disparage, depreciate, Shirley, Cardinal, ii. 1 (Alphonso); id., Brothers, i. 1; to subdue, ‘How to decline their wives and curb their manners’, Beaumont and Fl., Rule a Wife, ii. 4 (Estifania).
decrew, to decrease. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 6. 18. OF. decreu, F. décrû, pp. of decrestre (décroître), to decrease.