dernful, dreary, Spenser, Mourning Muse, 90.
dernly, dearnly, mournfully, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 85; sternly, id., iii. 1. 14; iii. 12. 34.
derrick, a hangman; hanging; the gallows; ‘Derrick must be his host’, Puritan Widow, iv. 1. 11; ‘Deric . . . is with us abusively used for a Hangman because one of that name was not long since a famed executioner at Tiburn’, Blount, Glossogr.; ‘I would there were a Derick to hang up him’, Dekker, Seven Deadly Sins (ed. Arber, 17). Du. Dierryk, Diederik, Theoderic.
derring do, daring action or feats, desperate courage; ‘A derring doe’, Spenser, Shep. Kal., Oct., 65, and Dec, 43; F. Q. ii. 4. 42. [In imitation of Spenser, Sir. W. Scott has the phrase ‘a deed of derring-do’ (Ivanhoe, ch. 29).] Hence, derring-doer, F. Q. iv. 2. 38. Spenser’s ‘derring doe’ is due to a misunderstanding of a construction in Chaucer’s Tr. and Cr. v. 837, where ‘in dorryng don’ means ‘in daring to do’ (what belongeth to a Knight). See NED.
descovenable, unbefitting. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 15, back, 12. Spelt discouenable, Game of the Chesse, bk. ii, c. 5 (p. 70 of Axon’s reprint). OF. descovenable.
descrive, to describe. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 25; vi. 12. 21. OF. descrivre. L. describere.
dese, a ‘dais’, a raised table in a hall at which distinguished persons sat at feasts; ‘The hye dese’, Skelton, El. Rummyng, 175. ME. dese (Will. Palerne, 4564), dees (Chaucer, Hous Fame, 1360, 1658). Norm. F. deis (Moisy), Med. L. discus, a table (cp. G. Tisch).
design, to indicate, show. Richard II, i. 1. 203; Spenser, F. Q. v. 7. 8.
despoiled, partially stripped; as in playing at the palm-play. Surrey, Prisoned in Windsor, 13; in Tottel’s Misc., p. 13.
desroy, to ‘disarray’, disorder. Caxton, Hist. Troye, leaf 33. 26; desray, id., lf. 188. 15.