Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/278

 Derby.—See Darby.

Derrey, subs. (thieves').—An eye-*glass. To take the derrey, (tailors') = to quiz, ridicule.

Derrick, subs. (old).—The gallows. [A corruption of Theodoric, the name of the public hangman at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries.] Now the name of an apparatus, resembling a crane. Also, used as a verb = to hang; apparently the earliest recorded sense. For synonyms, see Nubbing Cheat.

1600. W. Kemp, Nine Days' Wonder, in Arber's English Garner, vol. VIII., p. 37. One that would pol his father, derick his dad! do anything, how ill soever, to please his apish humour.

1607. Dekker, Jests to Make you Merie, in wks. (Grosart), ii., 318. For might I have beene her Judge, shee should haue had her due, and danst Derriks dance in a hempen halter.

1609. Dekker, Gul's Horne-Booke, chap. ii. The Neapolitan will (like Derick, the hangman) embrace you with one arme, and rip your guts with the other.

Derwenter, subs. (Australian).—A convict. [From the penal settlement on the banks of the Derwent, Tasmania.]

Despatchers, subs. (gamesters').—False dice with two sides, double four, five, and six.

1856. Times, 27 Nov., s.v.

Desperate, and Desperately, adj. and adv. (colloquial).—A metaphor of excessiveness; e.g., desperately mashed = over head and ears in love.

Detrimental, subs. (society).—An ineligible suitor; also a male flirt.

1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 133, col. 1. Defining that zero of fortune to stand below which constitutes a detrimental.

1859. Whitty, Political Portraits, p. 113. The fact is, that the detrimentals won't work; born into shifty affluence, it is easier to struggle on in a false position than to struggle out of it.

1886. Household Words, 13 March, p. 400. A detrimental, in genteel slang, is a lover, who, owing to his poverty is ineligible as a husband; or one who professes to pay attentions to a lady without serious intention of marriage, and thereby discourages the intentions of others.

Detrimental-Club, subs. (society).—The Reform Club.

Deuce, Dewce, or Deuse, subs. (common).—1. The devil; perdition. Also used as an ejaculative, e.g., The deuce! What the deuce! Who the deuce! Deuce take you! etc. [Wedgwood: 'The evolution of deuce from Thurs., the name of a Scandinavian demon is fully vouched.' Skeat: Latin deus, God, deus, borrowed from French usage, being found as an interjection in early English works. Low German duus, Ger. daus are used similarly and may have the same origin; others connect it with Armor. dus, teuz, a goblin.] For synonyms, see Skipper.

b. 1670, d. 1729. Congreve. It was the prettiest prologue as he wrote it; well, the deuce take me if I ha'n't forgot it.

1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2nd ed.), s.v. Dewce.

1780. Mrs. Cowley, The Belle's Stratagem, Act v., Sc. i. Miss C. Deuce take her! She's six years younger than I am.

1827. R. B. Peake, Comfortable Lodgings, Act I., Sc. iii., De C. I am the Intendant of Police, sir. Sir H. The deuce you are!

1837. Barham, I. L. (Jackdaw of Rheims). There's a cry and a shout, And a deuce of a rout, And nobody seems to know what they're about.