English edit

Noun edit

dimpsey

  1. (UK, West Country, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset) The time in the evening just before dusk.
    • 1896, Gratiana Longworth Knocker, “Of the Evil Doings of Nance Darvel”, in The Witch of Withyford[1], page 11:
      She sat telling with the old Jane a good two hours, for 'twas getting dimpsey when she started up hill to Grange, and that she took easy as she was getting a bit stoutish, and it made her bad to hurry.
    • 1910, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Mary Findlater, Jane Findlater, Allan McAulay, chapter VI, in The Affair at the Inn:
      If we two poor wayfarers could have sat quietly beside each other and chatted in 'e dimpsey light, it would not have been a bit bad, but there was something eternally doing.
    • 1915, Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie, “An Off-Shore Wind”, in A Tall Ship:
      There was the river: woodland paths skirting in the evening a world of silver and grey, across which bats sketched zigzag flights. Very nice in the dimpsey light, but stuffy in the daytime.