Durandell, a trusty sword. Greene, Orl. Fur. i. 1. 123. OF. Durendal, the name of the sword of Roland (Ch. Rol. 926). See [Durindana].
duret, some kind of dance; ‘Galliards, durets, corantoes’, Beaumont, Masque at Gray’s Inn, stage direction (near the end).
duretta, a coarse stuff of a durable quality. Mayne, City Match, i. 5 (Timothy). Also duretto (NED.). Ital. duretto, ‘somewhat hard’ (Florio).
Durindana, the name of Orlando’s sword. B. Jonson, Ev. Man in Hum. iii. 1 (Bobadil); Beaumont and Fl., Lover’s Progress, iii. 3 (Malfort); Durindan, Faithful Friends, ii. 3 (Calveskin). Ital. Durindana (Ariosto); see Fanfani. The Italian name for Durendal, by which the famous sword of Roland is known in the old French Chansons de Geste. See Gautier’s note on ‘Durendal’ in his ‘Chanson de Roland’, l. 926, p. 90.
dust, to hurl, fling, cast with force. Chapman, tr. of Iliad, xvi. 544; xxi. 377. See EDD.
dust-point, a boys’ game in which ‘points’ were laid in a heap of dust, and thrown at with a stone; ‘Our boyes, laying their points in a heape of dust, and throwing at them with a stone, call that play of theirs Dust-point’, Cotgrave (s.v. Darde). Fletcher, Captain, iii. 3 (Clora); Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymph, vi. (Melanthus).
Dutch widow, a cant term for a prostitute. Middleton, A Trick to Catch, iii. 3 (Drawer).
dutt, to dote; ‘Dutting Duttrell’ (i.e. doting dotterel), Edwards, Damon and Pithias; altered to doating dottrel in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 68; but see Anc. Eng. Drama, i. 88, l. 1.
dwine, to pine away; ‘He . . . dwyned awaye’, Morte Arthur, leaf 429*, back, 8; bk. xxi, c. 12; dwynd, withered, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, ii. 567 (ed. Arber, p. 61). In common prov. use in Scotland and the north of England (EDD.). ME. dwynyn awey, ‘evanesco’ (Prompt.). OE. dwīnan.
dybell, (probably) trouble, difficulty; ‘My son’s in Dybell here, in Caperdochy, i’ tha gaol’, 1 Edw. IV (Hobs), vol. i, p. 72. Perhaps the same word as ‘dibles’ (or daibles), an E. Anglian word for difficulties, embarrassments (EDD.).