dread, an object of reverence or awe. Milton, Samson, 1473; ‘Una, his deare dreed’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 6. 2.
drent, drowned. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 49; v. 7. 39. ME. dreint (dreynt), pp. of drenchen, to drown (Chaucer, Bk. Duchess, 148).
drere, grief, sorrow, gloom. Spenser, F. Q. i. 8. 40; ii. 12. 36. Hence, drerihed, sadness, id., Muiopotmos, 347; dreriment, Shep. Kal., Nov., 36.
dresser. The signal for the servants to take in the dinner was the cook’s knocking on the dresser, thence called the cook’s drum (Nares); ‘When the dresser, the cook’s drum, thunders’, Massinger, Unnat. Combat, iii. 1 (Steward); ‘The dresser calls in (Knock within, as at dresser)’, Heywood, Witches of Lancs., iii. 1 (Seely); vol. iv, p. 206; ‘Hark! they knock to the dresser’, Brome, Jovial Crew, iv. 1 (end).
dretched, pp., vexed or disturbed by dreams. Morte Arthur, leaf 402. 31; bk. xx, c. 5. OE. dreccan, to vex.
dretchyng of swevens, vexation by dreams. Morte Arthur, leaf 430*. 7; bk. xxi, c. 12.
drib, to let fall in drops or driblets, to dribble out. Dryden, Prologue to The Loyal Brother, 22. Cp. prov. ‘drib’, a drop, a small quantity of liquid (EDD.).
dricksie, decayed; as timber; ‘A drie and dricksie oak’, Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. iii, c. 19; p. 252. See Droxy in EDD.; and Drix in NED.
drink, to smoke tobacco. Middleton, Roaring Girl, ii. 1 (Laxton). A common expression. See Nares.
drivel, a drudge, a servant doing menial work; ‘A Drudge, or driuell’, Baret (1580); Spenser, F. Q. iv. 2, 3; ‘A dyshwasher, a dryvyll’, Skelton, Against Garnesche, 26. Spelt drevil, Tusser, Husbandry, § 113. 12. ME. drivil, a drudge, a menial (see Prompt. EETS., note no. 588); cp. Du. drevel, ‘a scullion, or a turnspit’ (Hexham). See NED.