druxy
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From drix (“rotten part of wood”) + -y (the forms drixy, droxy and drucksy occur in various dialects), of unclear origin.[1][2] The adjective is attested since at least the 1580s, in The Arte of English Poesie.[3] One early (1913) suggestion is that drucksy is connected to (perhaps metathesis of) Scottish durk (“spoil, ruin”),[4] but that sense appears to be a simple extension of the more usual meaning of durk, "to stab with a dirk" (itself a word of obscure origin).[5]
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
druxy
- (of wood, obsolete outside dialects) Having decayed spots or streaks of a whitish colour; rotten, decayed.
- 1860 June 1, Journal of the Society of Arts, volume 8, page 562:
- […] and as the lapse of time required for seasoning would allow the decomposition of very bad druxy knots to display itself, there seems to be more reason for attaching importance to the use of seasoned timber in the framework of ships. […] all unprepared timber, let it be ever so sound, free from sap, druxy knots, […] or ground shakes.
- 1905, Scientific American: Supplement, volume 59, page 24433:
- After the gale, the tree has had sufficient vitality to continue its growth, and so enfold its crippled stem in a new sheath of sound wood. Fig. 10 represents decayed or “druxy” knots. Sometimes such knots are met with embedded in fairly sound wood, but in most cases, the effects of the decay run far down into the parent stem.
References edit
- “druxy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- ^ Joseph Wright, editor (1900), “DROXY”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volumes II (D–G), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
- ^ The Arte of English Poesie, ascribed to GEorge Puttenham (1584-1589), edition by Edward Arber, page 252: "we liken […] an old man who laboureth with continuall infirmities, to a drie and dricksie oke."
- ^ Neudrucke frühneuenglischer Grammatiken: Pt. 1. Charles Butler's English grammar (1634), hrsg. von A. Eichler (M. Niemeyer, 1913), page 34: Einige i ſhort bieten etymologische Rätsel: so drix FM 57, m., das 'decayed wood' bedeuten muß (richtig im O.E.D.); die dazu gehörigen Adjektiva drixey, droxy und drucksy (E.D.D.) lassen Zusammenhang mit schottisch durk — to spoil, to ruin (E.D.D.) dutch Metathese zu.
- ^ “durk” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.
Further reading edit
- Richard Webster Huntley (1868) A Glossary of the Cotswold Dialect: Illustred by Examples from Ancient Authors, page 37: “DROXY. Spoken of decayed wood : Drogenlic, Saxon.”
- Edward Hungerford Goddard (1897) The Wiltshire archaeological and natural history magazine, page 244: “Droxy. adj. Rotten, decayed, as an old tree. N.W. [Glouc. bord.]”
- Joseph Wright (1900) The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect Words Still in Use, Or Known to Have Been in Use During the Last Two Hundred Years: D-G, page 188:
- DROXY, adj. Hrf. Glo. Hmp. Wil. Cor. Also in forms drixey Cor.; drucksy Hmp. [dro·ksi, dri·ksi, dru·ksi.] Dead, rotten, decayed, esp. applied to wood. Hrf., Glo., Hmp., n.Wil. (G.E.D.), Cor. [Druxey, timber in a state of decay, with white spongy veins, WEALE.] [A der. of drix, the decayed part of timber.]
- The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, 1906, page 1784: “druxy, druxey (druk'si), a. [Also droxy, and formerly *drixy, dricksie; origin obscure.] Partly decayed, as a tree or timber; having decayed spots or streaks of a whitish color.”
- Horace Harman (1929) Buckinghamshire dialect, page 146: “Drucksy (variant of Droxy). — Unsound, rotten. Wright says it is derived from drix, the decayed part of timber.”