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Drake means the "duck-king." The old English word end means a duck, and end-ric becomes 'dric,
drake. Similarly the German tauber-rich is a male dove, and ganse-rich, a male goose, or gander.
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Druid A chief priest (Celtic, der, superior; wydd, priest or instructor). In Taliesin we read, Būm gwydd
yngwarth an (at length I became a priest or wydd). It was after this period that the wydds were divided
into two classes, the Der-wydds and the Go-wydds (Druids and Ovidds). Every chief had his druid, and
every chief druid was allowed a guard of thirty men (Strabo). The order was very wealthy. (Not derived
from the Greek drus, an oak.)
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Dublin (the Irish dubh-linn, the "black pool"). The chief part of the city stands on land reclaimed from
the river Liffey or the sea
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Ducat A piece of money; so called from the legend on the early Sicilian pieces: Sit tibi, Christe, datus,
quem tu regis, istė ducatus (May this duchy [ducat-us ] which you rule be devoted to you, O Christ).
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Ducks and Drakes The ricocheting or rebounding of a stone thrown from the hand to skim along the
surface of a pond or river.
Somebody mentioned this pastime a couple days ago. Was it you,IP?
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Dude A masher. One who renders himself conspicuous by affectation of dress, manners, and speech.
The word was first familiarised in London in 1881, and is a revival of the old word dudes (clothes). We
have several derivations, as dudder, one who sells dress-pieces; duddery, a rag-shop; duddle, to wrap up
warmly (Halliwell), etc. It is not of American origin.
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Dudgeon (The). The handle of a dagger, at one time made of box-wood root, called "dudgeon-wood;" a
dagger with such a handle. Shakespeare does not say, "and on the blade o' the dudgeon gouts of blood,"
but "on the blade and dudgeon . . ," both blade and handle.
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Duds Old clothes, tattered garments (Gaelic, dud, a rag; Dutch, tod; Italian, tozzi). A dudder or dudsman
is a scarecrow, or man of straw dressed in cast off garments to fray birds; also a pedlar who sells duds or
gown-pieces. (Compare the Greek duo, to put on [clothes]; Latin, in-duo, to clothe.)
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stranger
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stranger
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wwh wrote (in some other post, but I'm too lazy to wade through them all to find the right one just now):
>> quarrel is to throw darts at each other (Welsh, cwarel, a dart) <<
which raises two questions I'd like to know more about:
1. There are precious few words in English from Welsh. More examples please!
2. WHY has there been so little borrowing from Welsh to English? The nations in question are not exactly at opposite ends of the earth!
Cheers, Ch.S.
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Dear Grump: Maverick, who left when Keiva committed his dastardly deed (along with 40 others)
was our only Welch knowledgeable contributor. I am sure there are dozens of words taken from
Welch that give no clue as to their origin. One that comes to mind is "crowder" an ancient
word for "fiddle player" that I have seen as a family name. I'll look for some more. Thanks for
the suggestion.
PS: here is a URL to Worldwidewords.com that might interest you:
[url]www.quinion.com/words/articles/welsh.htm]/url]
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