doxy

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdɒksi/

  Rhymes: -ɒksi

Etymology 1

Perhaps from Middle Dutch *doketje, diminutive of Middle Dutch docke (“a doll”), from Proto-Germanic *dokko (“something round”), related to *dukkǭ (“muscle, strength”). Cognate with Low German dokke (“doll”), Saterland Frisian dok, dokke (“a doll”), Swedish docka (“doll, puppet”).

Alternative forms

• doxie

Noun

doxy (plural doxies)

1. (archaic) A sweetheart; a prostitute or a mistress.
   • 1907, Justin Huntly McCarthy, Needles and pins, page 82:

     He did not relish the apparition of that Katherine, for when it appeared it seemed to bring with it a brother shadow that wore ragged clothes and tangled hair and foul linen, that drank from any flagon and drabbed with any doxy, that slept in tavern angles through hours of drunkenness, a thing whose fingers pillaged, filched, and pilfered when and where they could, a creature that once he saw whenever he stared into a mirror.

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:

     Do you think the writer of Antony and Cleopatra, a passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head that he chose the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal?

   • 1936, Anthony Bertram, Like the Phoenix:

     However, terrible as it may seem to the tall maiden sisters of J.P.'s in Queen Anne houses with walled vegetable gardens, this courtesan, strumpet, harlot, whore, punk, fille de joie, street-walker, this trollop, this trull, this baggage, this hussy, this drab, skit, rig, quean, mopsy, demirep, demimondaine, this wanton, this fornicatress, this doxy, this concubine, this frail sister, this poor Queenie—did actually solicit me, did actually say 'coming home to-night, dearie' and my soul was not blasted enough to call a policeman.

   • 2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, published 2010, page 328:

     So then, of course, he paid her in kind...the place is full of his doxies, open a closet at Allington and some wench falls out of it.

Synonyms

• paramour

See also

• arch doxy

Etymology 2

From -doxy in orthodoxy, heterodoxy, etc.

Noun

doxy (plural doxies)

1. (colloquial) A defined opinion.
   • 1759, William Warburton, letter to Lord Sandwich:

     Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man's doxy.

Etymology 3

Clipping. From deoxy-.

Noun

doxy (uncountable)

1. (informal, pharmacology) Clipping of doxycycline.
   • 1996 May 7, Phyllis Mervine, “Re: Tetracycline”, in sci.med.diseases.lyme‎^[1] (Usenet):

     I know one patient who couldn't take the tabs but could tolerate liquid doxy.

Etymology 4

Clipping of dachshund +‎ -y.

Noun

doxy (plural doxies)

1. (informal) A dachshund.

Alternative forms

• doxie

Anagrams

• oxyd