Duke Humphrey, to dine with, to go without dinner; ‘He may chaunce dine with duke Homphrye tomorrow’, Sir Thos. More, iv. 2. 361. One who had no prospect of a dinner would walk in St. Paul’s, under the pretence of going to see Duke Humphrey’s monument there; on the chance that he might meet there some acquaintance who would invite him. But Duke Humphrey was actually buried at St. Albans (see Stowe’s Survey, ed. Thoms, 125). Cp. Mayne, City Match, iii. 3 (Plotwell and Timothy). See Nares.
dulcet, the dowcet of a stag. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, i. 219. A latinized form; see [dowcets].
dumbfounding, a stupefying; said to mean a rough amusement in which one person struck another hard and stealthily upon the back; ‘That witty recreation, called dumbfounding’, Dryden, Prologue to the Prophetess, 47. See EDD. (s.v. Dumbfounder).
dummerer; see [dommerar].
dump, a fit of abstraction or musing; ‘I dumpe, I fall in a dumpe or musyng upon thynges’, Palsgrave; ‘Lethargic dump’, Butler, Hudibras, i. 2. 973; a fit of melancholy, ‘In doleful dump’, id., ii. 1. 85; a plaintive melody or song, Two Gent. iii. 2. 85; used of a kind of dance, ‘The devil’s dump had been danced then’, Fletcher, Pilgrim, v. 4 (Roderigo).
dunny, somewhat ‘dun’, or dusky brown. Skelton, El. Rummyng, 400. A north-country word (EDD.). See [donny].
Dun’s in the mire (the horse is stuck in the mire), the name of a rustic game in which the players had to extricate a wooden ‘dun’ (a horse) from an imaginary slough. ‘Dun is in the mire’ became a proverbial phrase, so in Chaucer, Manciple’s Prologue, 5. ‘Dun’s i’ th’ mire’, Fletcher, “Woman-hater, iv. 2 (Pandar). The game is alluded to in Romeo, i. 4. 41. ‘If thou art Dun we’ll draw thee from the mire’, and in Hudibras, iii. 3. 110, ‘Your trusty squire, Who has dragg’d your dunship out o’ th’ mire’. See Brand’s Pop. Antiq. (under ‘Games’), and Gifford’s Ben Jonson, vii. 283 (Nares).
dun’s the mouse, the mouse is brown. A jocose phrase of small meaning; sometimes used after another has used the word done; Romeo, i. 4. 40; London Prodigal, iv. 1. 16.
Dunstable, plain (a proverbial phrase), plain speaking. Witch of Edmonton, i. 2 (Old Carter). Cp. the proverb, ‘As plain as Dunstable highway’, Heywood’s Eng. Proverbs, 69, 136; ‘As plain as Dunstable road’, Fuller, Worthies, i. 114 (NED.). See Nares.
durance, confinement. L. L. L. iii. 1. 135; 2 Hen. IV, v. 5. 37; durableness, 1 Hen. IV, i. 2. 49. Cp. ‘As the tailor, that out of seven yards stole one and a half of durance’, i.e. durable cloth, Three Ladies of London, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 344.