In the Penal Code, dacoity is defined as organised banditry by five or more persons. The word derives from the Hindustani word for a robber, dakait.
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In poetry, a dactyl is a foot consisting of one long followed by two short syllables, or, in English, one accented and two unaccented, as happily.
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Dak was the east Indian postal service. Properly a dak was a relay of men carrying letters, despatches and the like.
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The Danewerk or Dannevirke, was an ancient wall of about from 30 to 40 feet high and of an equal thickness extending along the southern frontier of Schleswig for nearly 10 miles, from the North Sea to the Baltic. It was constructed in the middle of the 10th century and repaired in 1850, but was captured by the Austrians and Prussians in the Schleswig-Holstein war of 1864 and soon after destroyed.
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The Dark Ages were the five or six centuries following the fall of the west Roman Empire, after the civilisation of Rome, based on unity and inter- communication had been destroyed by repeated barbarian invasions.
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The Dartmoor Massacre was a massacre of a number of American sailors captured during the American War of Independence and confined in Dartmoor Prison, in Devon, England. It occurred on April the 6th, 1815. In the prison were 6000 Americans and 10000 Frenchmen. The former becoming impatient for their liberty, since the war was then long ended, attempted to escape. They were set upon by the guards and a number of them were killed. An investigation of the matter was made and the British Government offered ample satisfaction.
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The notation of dates varies around the world. In the United Kingdom, dates are written as dd/mm/yyyy or as dd/mm/yy so that the date June the 7th 2004 may be notated as 7/6/2004 or as 07/06/2004 or even 7/6/04. In the USA, dates are notated as mm/dd/yyyy so that the same date, June the 7th 2004 is notated as 06/07/2004. This can often lead to confusion between American and British people when reading dates unless the notation is obvious by the day being larger than 12, such as in the date 30th June 2004 which may be notated as 30/06/2004 or 06/30/2004 and the appropriate system of notation easily deduced as there are only 12 months in the year.
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The Babylonians began the day at sun-rising; theJews at sun-setting; the Egyptians and Romans at midnight, as do most modern peoples. The civil day in most countries is divided into two portions of twelve hours each. The abbreviations PM. and AM. (the first signifying post meridiem, Latin for afternoon; the latter ante meridiem, forenoon) are requisite, in consequence of this division of the day. The Italians in some places reckon the day from sunset to sunset, and enumerate the hours up to twenty-four; the Chinese divide it into twelve parts of two hours each.
For astronomical purposes the day is divided into twenty-four hours instead of two parts of twelve hours. Formerly it began at noon, but since the 1st of January 1885, the day of twenty-four hours begins at midnight at Greenwich Observatory; and this reckoning is now generally adopted for astronomical purposes elsewhere than at Greenwich. The Greenwich day practically determines the date for all the world. At mid-day at Greenwich the date (day of the week and month) is everywhere the same, though there are all possible differences in naming the hour of the day. But mid-day at Greenwich is the only instant at which we ever have the same date all over the world. The meridian of midnight, which is then at 180 degrees east or west, goes on revolving, gradually bringing a new date to every place to the west of that line, but obviously not bringing that new date to the places immediately to the east of that line until twenty-four hours after. From this it follows that whereas places on the one side of the globe never have a different date except when midnight lies between them, places on the opposite side of the globe, and on different sides of the meridian of 180 degrees east Or west never have the same date except when midnight lies between them. The actual difference of time between Wellington in New Zealand and Honolulu in Hawaii is only about two hours; yet a person at Wellington may date a letter 9 o'clock AM 26th June, while another writing at the same instant at Honolulu dates his 11 o'clock AM 25th June.
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A dead-letter is a letter which lies for a certain period uncalled for at the post-office etc, or one which cannot be delivered from defect of address, and which is sent to the general post-office to be opened and returned to the sender.
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A deal is the division of a piece of timber made by sawing, that is a board or plank. The name deal is chiefly applied to boards of fir above 7 inches (18 cm) in width and of various lengths exceeding 6 feet (1.8 meters). If 7 inches or less wide they are called battens, and when under 6 feet long they are called deal-ends. The usual thickness was 3 inches (7.6 cm), and width 9 inches (23 cm). The standard size, to which other sizes may be reduced, was 1.5 inch thick, 11 inches broad, and 12 feet long. Whole deal is deal which is 1.5 inch thick; slit deal, half that thickness.
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Death-rate is the proportion of deaths among the inhabitants of a town, country, etc. In Britain it is usually calculated at so many per thousand per annum.
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A debacle is a sudden breaking up of ice in a river. The term is used by geologists for any sudden outbreak of water, hurling before it and dispersing stones and other debris.
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Decimal System is the name given to any system of weights, measures, or money in which the unit is always multiplied by 10 or some power of 10 to give a higher denomination, and divided by 10 or a power of 10 for a lower denomination. This system was originally developed in France, and the principle obtained in the coinage of Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the United States, and other countries, before eventually spreading to the rest of the world. To express the higher denominations, that is to say, the unit multiplied by 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, the French made use of the prefixes deca, hecto, kilo, myria, derived from the Greek; thus, the metre being the unit of length, decametre is 10 metres, hectometre 100 metres, kilometre 1000 metres. To express lower denominations, that is, tenths, hundredths, etc, the Latin prefixes deci, centi, milli are used in the same way; thus a centilitre is the hundredth part of a litre, decilitre the tenth part of a litre. The basis of the whole system is the linear measure, the unit of which is the metre, which was originally supposed to be the ten-millionth part of a quadrant of the earth's meridian (39.37 inches). The square of 10 metres, or square decametre, called an are, is the unit of surface measure. The cube of the tenth part of the metre or cubic deimetre called a litre is the unit of liquid capacity. The weight of a cubic centimetre of distilled water at 4 degrees centigrade called a gramme is the unit of weight. In Britain the decimal system of weights and measures is known as the metric system.
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Deckle edge is the name given to the irregular, untrimmed edge found on handmade paper. It is artificially produced on machine-made paper so as to provide a decorative edge to fine books and stationery.
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The Declaration of Independence was made in 1776 by the 13 English colonies in North America breaking away from all allegiance to the British Crown. The Declaration was mainly the work of Thomas Jefferson. Already in December 1775 the Congress had declared itself independent of the English parliament and by this declaration had repudiated allegiance to the Crown.
The Declaration of Paris in 1856 adopted with the Treaty of Paris to establish four principles of international law:
- 1) Privateering to be abolished;
- 2) the neutral flag might cover enemy goods except contraband of war;
- 3) neutral goods, except contraband of war, not to be subject to capture under an enemy's flag;
- 4) blockades, to be binding, must be effective, i.e. maintained by a sufficient force.
The treaty was accepted by nearly all civilized nations, except the United States. The United States refused to agree to the abolition of privateering, and this cost them heavily in the American Civil War.
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In 1765, the Stamp Act Congress of America published a 'Declaration of Rights and Grievances of the Colonists of America', in which they protested against the Stamp Act and all efforts to tax them in a Parliament in which they could not be represented, and claimed for themselves all the rights of British subjects. A similar declaration of rights was issued by the Continental Congress of 1774, adapted to meet also the aggressive acts which had more recently been passed by Parliament. Another such was included in the Declaration of Independence.
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A declarator is a form of action in the Scottish Court of Session by which some right of property, of status, etc, is sought to be judicially declared, leaving the legal consequences of the fact to follow as a matter of course.
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The Declaratory Act was an act passed by Parliament on March the 7th, 1766, vindicating the previous enactments affecting the colonies, and declaring that the king, with the advice of Parliament, had full power to make laws binding America in any cases whatsoever. This law accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act.
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In grammar, declension is the aggregate of the inflections or changes of form which nouns, pronouns, and adjectives receive in certain languages according to their meaning or relation to other words in a sentence, such variations being comprehended under the three heads of number, gender, and case, the latter being the most numerous.
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Decoration day is an American festival, observed upon May the 30th and is set aside for decorating the graves of those that fell in the American Civil War.
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Strictly speaking, a decoy is either a tame or artificial duck, so placed as to lure wild ducks within gunshot range. The term is widely applied to any means by which a person or animal is lured into a trap.
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Decretals, is a general name for the Papal decrees, comprehending the rescripts (answers to inquiries and petitions), decrees (judicial decisions by the Rota Romana), mandates (official instructions for ecclesiastical officers, courts, etc), edicts (Papal ordinances in general), and general resolutions of the councils. The decretals form a most important portion of the Roman Catholic canon law, the authoritative collection of them being that made by the orders of Gregory IX and published in 1234. A collection known as the false decretals was made in the 9th century, and for hundreds of years passed as genuine, though the greater part of it is spurious.
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In reasoning, deduction is the act or method of drawing inferences, or of deducing conclusions from premises; or that which is drawn from premises.
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In law a deed is a writing containing some contract or agreement, and the evidence of its execution, made between parties legally capable of entering into a contract or agreement; particularly an instrument on paper or parchment, conveying real estate to a purchaser or donee. It is either an indenture or a deed poll; the former made between two or more persons in different interests, the latter made by a single person, or by two or more persons having similar interests.
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A deed poll is a deed having a straight edge at the top, as opposed to an indenture. A deed poll was used when only one party was involved in an action, e.g. when a person declared that he wished to be known by a different name. Deeds commonly now have straight edges and are used for all purposes.
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In law, defamation is a false statement tending to expose another person to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or to injure him in his trade or profession. Mere insult is not sufficient.
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The Defence of the Realm Acts (DORA) were a series of Acts passed during and after the Great War in Britain conferring on the King in Council the power to take extra-ordinary measures for the defence of the realm. Perhaps the most unpopular Act was the limitation of the times during which intoxicants could be sold, commonly known as the licensing hours and not relaxed until the 1990s.
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A definition is a brief and precise description of a thing by its properties; an explanation of the signification of a word or term, or of what a word is understood to express. Logicians distinguish definitions into nominal and real. A nominal definition explains the meaning of a term by some equivalent word or expression supposed to be better known. A real definition explains the nature of the thing. A real definition is again accidental, or a description of the accidents, as causes, properties, effects, etc; or essential, which explains the constituent parts of the essence or nature of the thing. An essential definition is, moreover, metaphysical or logical, defining 'by the genus and difference', as it is called; as, for example, 'a plant is an organized being, destitute of sensation', where the part first of the definition states the genus (organized being), and the latter the difference (destitute of sensation, other organisms/beings possessing sensation); or physical, when it distinguishes the physical parts of the essence; thus, a plant is distinguished by the leaves, stalk, root, etc. A strictly accurate definition can be given of only a few objects. The most simple things are the least capable of definition, from the difficulty of finding terms more simple and intelligible than the one to be defined.
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In law, deforcement is the holding of lands or tenements to which another person has a right; a general term including any species of wrong by which he who has a right to the freehold is kept out of possession. In Scots law, it is the resisting of an officer in the execution of law.
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In grammar, degrees of comparison are inflections of adjectives or adverbs to express degrees of the original quality, usually divided into positive, comparative, and superlative such as strong, stronger, strongest, glorious, more glorious, most glorious.
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Dei gratia ('by the grace of God'), is a formula which sovereigns add to their title. The expression is taken from several apostolical expressions in the New Testament.
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Deimos is one of the two moons of Mars.
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Deism is a philosophical system which, as opposed to Atheism, recognizes a great First Cause; as opposed to Pantheism, a Supreme Being distinct from nature or the universe; while, as opposed to Theism, it looks upon God as wholly apart from the concerns of this world. It thus implies a disbelief in revelation, scepticism as regards the value of miraculous evidence, and an assumption that the light of nature and reason are the only guides in doctrine and practice. It is thus a phase of nationalism. In the 18th century there were a series of writers who are spoken of distinctively as the English deists. They include Collins, Toland, Tindal, etc.
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Delage were a make of successful French cars, including Grand Prix cars made between 1905 and 1953. In 1908 Delage driving his own make of car won the 500 km Dieppe Grand Prix clocking an average speed of 50 mph, and in 1911 the X type designed by Michelat won the Coupe de l'Auto at Boulogne.
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Delftware, or Delf, is a kind of pottery covered with an enamel or white glazing which gives it outwardly the appearance of porcelain. It was originally manufactured in the Dutch town of Delft in the 14th century and was decorated with designs in blue, and was among the best pottery of its day. Ware of the same kind is still made at various places.
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Dellia Robbia Ware is a form of terra-cotta bas-reliefs thickly enamelled with tin-glaze; made at Florence chiefly in 1450 to 1530 and in France between 1530 and 1567. They are so called from the name of the Italian artist, Lucca Della Robbia who used the technique.
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The Delphin Classics are a collection of the Latin classic authors made for the dauphin, son of Louis XIV, under the editorship of Bossuet and Huet, with notes and interpretations. A similar series based on these was published in London.
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Delta is the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet.
In geography, a delta is an alluvial triangular deposit formed at diverging mouths of a river, the original delta is the island formed at the mouths of the Nile and so named by the Greeks from its resemblance to their letter delta (a triangle).
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Deltiology is the hobby of collecting postcards.
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In sculpture, demi-rilievo describes a half-relief, or the condition of a figure when it rises from the plane as if it had been cut in two and only one half fixed to the plane.
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Democracy is the rule of a people by the people themselves; that form of government in which the sovereignty of the state is vested in the people, and exercised by them either directly, as in the small republics of ancient Greece, or indirectly, by means of representative institutions, as in the constitutional states of modern times. The term is also applied in a collective sense to the people or populace, especially the populace regarded as rulers.
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Historically the Democratic Party was the most important of the American political parties, having been in continuous existence since the end of the 18th century. The rise of such a party, as soon as national politics began under the new Constitution, was natural. The love of individual liberty rather than strong government, was native in the minds of most Americans. Those who felt this most strongly would be likely to look with apprehension upon the Federal Government, and the possibility of its encroaching upon the States under cover of the new Federal Constitution. They were therefore likely to be advocates of strict construction of the Constitution and of States' rights. To these elements of party feeling, which had drawn the Anti-Federalists together in 1788, was added a few years later the strong sympathy of many Americans with the French Revolution, and the desire that Government should aid France in her contest with England.
Thomas Jefferson put himself at the head of the party drawn together by agreement in these sentiments, and led them in opposition to the Federalists. The party took the name of Democratic-Republican. Before Monroe's administration its members were more commonly called Republicans, since then most commonly Democrats. From the first the party was strongest in the Southern States. From its origin in 1792 to 1801, it was in opposition. In 1798 and 1799, upon the passage of the Alien and Sedition laws, it took strong ground for States' rights in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. The election of Jefferson. in 1801 brought it into power. The chief tenets of the party were, belief in freedom of religion, of politics, of speech and of the press, in popular rule, in peace, in economical government, in the utmost possible restriction of the sphere of government, in hospitality to immigrants, and in the avoidance of foreign complications.
Placed in control of the government, the majority of the party drifted away from its strict constructionist ground, and supported measures of a nationalizing character. After the War of 1812, the Federalist party went out of existence, and the Democratic party had complete possession of the field. In 1820, Monroe was re-elected without opposition. But opposing tendencies in the nation and in the party were already showing themselves, and preparing the way for a new party division, between the Whigs, advocates of protection and other nationalizing measures, and those Democrats who held to the old programme of States' rights and free trade and restricted government. With the accession of Jackson in 1829, new social strata came into power in the Democratic party, the widening of the suffrage giving it a more popular character. Managed by skilful politicians, not without the aid of the spoils system, the party won every Presidential election but two (1840, 1848) from this time to 1860, destroyed the US bank, annexed Texas, and carried the country through the war with Mexico. But meanwhile the slavery question, coming into increasing prominence, was gradually forcing a division between the Democrats of the South and the great body of those in the North, who were unwilling to go so far in the protection of slavery by national authority as was desired by their Southern allies. The final split came in the nominating convention of 1860.
Two candidates were nominated, Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans won the election, and the American Civil War broke out. Though many War Democrats aided the administration in preserving the Union, the party was discredited in the eyes of many by its previous connection with the Southern leaders and the pro-slavery cause, and won no Presidential election until that of 1884, when in the minds of many the war issues were extinct and economic questions had taken their place. Defeated in 1888, it was again successful in 1892. By the end of the 19th century the party was hardly more strict-constructionist than the Republican, nor more marked by devotion to States' rights and the party was mostly noted as the opponent of a high tariff.
By the end of the 20th century the differences between the Democratic party and Republicans had become blurred, though the Democratic party was generally perceived - not always accurately - as more left-wing or liberal than the Republicans.
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Demonstration, in a logical sense, is any mode of connecting a conclusion with its premises, or an effect with its cause. In a more rigorous sense it is applied only to those modes of proof in which the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. In ordinary language, however, demonstration is often used as synonymous with proof.
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Dempsey and Makepeace was a British cops and robbers television series created in 1985 about an imaginary elite criminal investigation unit of the British police to which is assigned an unorthodox American policeman (played by Michael Brandon) on attachment from the USA and who is paired up with an attractive, aristocratic British undercover female policewoman (played by Glynis Barber).
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In law, a demurrer is a stop at some point in the pleadings, and a resting of the decision of the cause on that point; an issue on matter of law. A demurrer confesses the fact or facts to be true, but denies the sufficiency of the facts in point of law to support the claim or defence.
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Demy is a size of paper between royal and crown. Printing demy is 22.5 inches by 17.5 inches, writing demy 20 inches by 15.5 inches and drawing demy 22 inches by 17.
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Denouement is originally a French term which became adopted in England. It signifies the winding up or catastrophe of a plot, the solution of a mystery, etc.
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In old English law, deodand was a term denoting any chattel which had caused the death of a person, accidentally or otherwise, such as falling from a ladder, being tossed by a bull, falling from a horse etc. The item was sold and the proceeds taken by the church and the money supposedly paid for masses to prevent the deceased's sole from purgatory. The practice of deodand was abolished in England in 1846.
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Deontology is the science of duty. The term is used by certain philosophic schools (Bentham, Spencer, etc) to denote their doctrine of ethics.
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In grammar, deponent is a verb passive in form but active or neuter in signification.
In law, a deponent is a person who makes an affidavit, or one who gives his testimony in a court of justice; a witness upon oath.
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In law, a deposition is the testimony given in court by a witness upon oath. It is also used to signify the attested written testimony of a witness by way of answer to interrogatories. Depositions are frequently taken conditionally, or de bene esse, as it is called; for instance, when the parties are sick, aged, or going abroad, depositions are taken, to be read in court in case of their death or departure before the trial comes on.
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Derby-day is the former great annual London holiday, on which the horse-race for the stakes instituted by Lord Derby in 1780 (Derby Stakes) is run. It always falls on a Wednesday, being the second day of the grand race meeting which takes place in the week after Trinity Sunday.
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Determinism is a philosophical theory which holds that the will is not free, but is invincibly determined either - according to the older form of the theory - by a motive furnished by Providence, or - according to the modern form - by the aggregation of inherited qualities and tendencies.
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In law, a detinue is the form of action whereby a plaintiff seeks to recover a chattel personal unlawfully detained.
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A deunx was a Roman measure of 11/12 parts of one libra (roughly equal to eleven ounces).
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Deus ex Machina (a god out of the machine) is a phrase formerly used to designate the resorting to supernatural causes to explain phenomena that one is not able to account for by natural means. The phrase is taken from the former practice on the classical stage of introducing a god from above by means of some mechanical contrivance in order to effect a speedy denouement of the plot.
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Deutero-canonical is a term applied to those books of Scripture that were admitted into the canon after the rest, some of them being regarded by Protestants as apocryphal.
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A deuterogamist is someone who marries for a second time.
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Developing countries are countries that often have abundant natural resources but lack the capital and entrepreneurial and technical skills required to develop them. The average income per head and the standard of living in these countries is therefore far below that of the industrial nations. Often known as the third world, these countries are being supported by various United Nations organisations as well as by western and eastern bloc nations, both of whom wish to influence their political development. The developing countries, in which some 70% of the world's population lives, are characterised by poverty, poor diet, the prevalence of disease, high fertility, overpopulation, illiteracy, poor educational facilities, and an agricultural economy. Many depend on a single product for their exports and are therefore vulnerable in world markets. The third world consists of most of Africa (except the Republic of South Africa), most of Asia (except Japan and the USSR), and much of South America.
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Dew is a deposition of water from the atmosphere upon the surface of the earth in the form of minute globules. During the day the earth both absorbs and emits heat, but after sunset its supply of warmth is cut off, though it still continues to radiate heat into the surrounding space. Grass, flowers, and foliage being good radiators, lose after sunset the heat which has previously been absorbed by them, without receiving any in return, and their temperature consequently falls considerably below that of the atmosphere. From the proximity of these cold substances the particles of vapour in the adjoining air are condensed and deposited upon their surfaces in the form of dew, or of hoar-frost where the temperature of the earth is below freezing.
When the sky is clouded the heat abstracted from the earth's surface by radiation is restored by the clouds, which, being good radiators, send back an equal amount of heat to what they receive; and a balance of temperature being thus maintained between the earth and the surrounding atmosphere, no dew is formed. The deposition of dew is likewise prevented by wind, which carries away the particles of air before the vapour contained in them has been condensed. Horizontal surfaces, and those which are exposed to a wide expanse of sky, receive a greater supply of dew than sheltered or oblique surfaces, where circumstances diminish the amount of radiation. The radiation from the earth's surface is one of those happy provisions for the necessities of living beings with which nature everywhere abounds.
The heavy dews which fall in tropical regions are in the highest degree beneficial to vegetation, which, but for this supply of moisture, would, in countries where scarcely any rain falls for months, be soon scorched and withered. But after the high temperature of the day the ground radiates under these clear skies with great rapidity, the surface is quickly cooled, and the watery vapour, which, from the great daily evaporation, exists in large quantities in the atmosphere, is deposited abundantly. This deposition is more plentiful also on plants, from their greater radiating power; while on hard, bare ground and stones, where it is less wanted, it is comparatively trifling.
In cold climates the earth, being cold and moist the clouds prevent the radiation of heat; the surface is thus preserved warm, and the deposition of dew is, in a great measure, prevented.
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A dewanny is a court in the East Indies for trying revenue and other civil disorders.
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Dexter's Laboratory is a children's animated cartoon television show created by Genndy Tartakovsky and commissioned by Turner Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera, about a little boy - Dexter - who creates bizarre inventions in his laboratory that usually work too well, and his annoying, brain-dead elder sister who usually manages to cause the invention to run amok.
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Diabolism is the worship of the devil.
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A diacritical mark is an accent, umlaut, cedilla, etc., set above or below a letter in foreign languages to modify the sound of the letter.
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A diaeresis is a separation of one syllable into two, and also the name of the two dots, similar to an umlaut, set above the second of two adjacent vowels in a word to show that both are to be pronounced separately.
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Diaglyphic is a term applied to sculpture, engraving, etc, in which the objects are sunk into the general surface.
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Dialectics was the old name of logic, or the art of reasoning, but used in Kant's philosophy to mean the logic of appearance, or that logic which treats of inevitable tendencies towards error and illusion in the very nature of reason.
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Dialogue is a conversation or discourse between two or more persons. The word is used more particularly for a formal conversation in theatrical performances, and for a written conversation or composition, in which two or more persons carry on a discourse. This form was much in favour amongst the ancient philosophers as a medium for expressing their thoughts on subjects. The Dialogues of Plato are the finest example. Many of the great French and Italian writers have used this form. Landor's Imaginary Conversations is a classic example of this kind in English.
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The Diamond necklace scandal occurred in 1785 when a diamond necklace was presented through Madame de Lamotte by Cardinal de Rohan to Marie Antoinette. The cardinal, a profligate churchman, entertained a passion for the queen and the Countess de Lamotte induced him to purchase for the queen a diamond necklace costing 85,000 pounds, which had been made for Madame Dubarry, from a jeweller named Boehmer. The cardinal handed the necklace to the countess, who rather than presenting it to the queen sold it to an English jeweller and pocketed the money. When the time for payment arrived , Boehmer sent his bill to the queen, who denied all knowledge of the matter. The matter went to court, and a trial lasting nine months ensued which caused great scandal.
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As a term in ornamentation diaper is applied to a surface covered with a flowered pattern sculptured in low relief, or to a similar pattern in painting or gilding covering a panel or flat surface.
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The Dick Bequest, was a bequest of over 100,000 pounds sterling left in 1828 by James Dick, a native of Morayshire, and latterly a merchant in London, for the encouragement of education in the parochial schools of the counties of Moray, Banff, and Aberdeen. In order to qualify for getting a share in the revenue of the fund, teachers had to pass a searching examination, and the amount received each year depended on the state of the schools, the subjects taught, etc. The sums distributed yearly thus varied considerably, the average for each teacher being about 30 pounds in 1905.
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A dicker was a British measurement of gloves equal to ten dozen pairs and of hides equal to ten hides.
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Dickinson College is one of the older American colleges. It was founded at Carlisle, Pennsylvania., in 1783, and named in honour of John Dickinson, then president of the State, who gave it valuable gifts. A Presbyterian institution from its foundation until 1833, it was then transferred to the Methodists. President Buchanan and Chief Justice Taney were among its alumni.
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A dictionary (from the Latin dictio, a saying, expression, word), is a book containing the words, or subjects, which it treats, arranged in alphabetical order. It may be either a vocabulary, or collection of the words in a language, with their definitions; or a special work on one or more branches of science or art prepared on the principle of alphabetical arrangement, such as dictionaries of biography, law, music, medicine, etc.
Amongst dictionaries of the English language, the earliest seem to have been those of Bullokar (1616) and Cockeram (1623). That of Dr Johnson published in 1755 made an epoch in this department of literature. Previous to this the chief English dictionary was that of Bailey, a useful work in its way. An enlarged edition of Johnson's dictionary, by the Rev. H. J. Todd, appeared in 1818; and this, again enlarged and modified, was issued under the editorship of Dr. R. G. Latham (1864-72).
The best-known American dictionary of the English language is that by Noah Webster, published in 1828, and since entirely recast. Richardson's dictionary, published in 1836-37, was valuable chiefly for its quotations. Ogilvie's Imperial English Dictionary, based on Webster, and first published in 1847-50, has been published in a remodelled and greatly enlarged form (in 4volumes 1881-82 and subsequently). It is one of the encyclopaedic dictionaries. Cassell's Encyclopaedic Dictionary was another extensive work published in 1879-88. Prior to the Oxord English Dictionary, the largest completed English dictionary was the Century Dictionary published in New York, 1889-91, in 6 volumes. The Standard Dictionary was another American work.
The Oxford English Dictionary was started under the editorship of James Murray, after agreement bty members of the Lodon Philological Societt in 1857 that existing dictionaries were incomplete and inaccurate. The first part of the 'A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles' as the Oxford Englisg Dictionary was originally called, was published by the Clarendon Press (later known as the Oxford University Press) in 1884, but it was not until 1928 that the last of ten volumes was published.
Among French dictionaries (for French people) the chief was that of Littre; among German, the dictionary begun by the brothers Grimm.
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Didactic Poetry is that kind of poetry which professes to give a kind of systematized instruction on a definite subject or range of subjects. Thus the Georgics of Virgil and the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius profess to give, the one a complete account of agriculture and kindred arts, the other a philosophical explanation of the world. In a larger sense of the word most great poems might be called didactic, since they contain a didactic element in the shape of history or moral teaching, Dante's Divina Cornmedia, Milton's Paradise Lost, or Goethe's Faust, for example. The difference may be said to be this, that in the one case the materials are limited and controlled by nothing but the creative fancy of the poet, while in the other they are much more determined by the actual nature of the subject treated of.
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A die-hard is someone who refuses to surrender or give-up. The term was given as a nickname to the old 57th Regiment of Foot (later known as the West Middlesex Regiment) following their involvement at the Battle of Albuera in 1811 when their colonel, Inglis, told his men to 'die hard'. At the battle the regimental banner was pierced with thirty bullet holes, twenty-three of the twenty-four officers were killed and 416 of the 584 men killed.
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Dies Fasti et Nefasti was a Roman division of days, with reference to judicial business, into working-days and holidays. A dies fastus was a day on which courts and assemblies could be held and judgments pronounced ; a dies nefastus, a day on which courts could not be held nor judgments pronounced.
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A diet was a meeting of some body of men held for deliberation or other purposes. The term was especially applied to the legislative or administrative assemblies of the German empire, Austria, etc.
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Dieu et mon droit (God and my right) is the motto of the English royal family. The motto was the parole of Richard I at the Battle of Gisors in 1198, meaning that he was no vassal of France, but owed his royalty to God alone. The motto was revived by Edward III when he claimed the crown of France. Except during the reigns of Elizabeth I and Anne, who used the motto Semper eadem, and of William III, who personally used Je maintiendray, it has ever since been the royal motto of England.
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Diffusionism is the theory that human culture was spread by degrees by outward expansion from a single source, as opposed to the view that cultures are developed independently and are only diffused when a particular people develops a more or less permanent type of culture which is well in advance of that of neighbouring peoples and becomes impressed upon the latter.
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Digamma was an ancient Greek letter, which was already obsolete in classical times and was longest in use among the Aeolians. It was so called because its form resembled a double gamma. It was pronounced like an English w.
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Digest was a name originally given to a collection or body of Roman laws, digested or arranged under proper titles by order of the emperor Justinian. Hence the term is applied to any somewhat; similar collection.
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The Dighton rock is a rock lying in the tide on the side of Taunton River, in Berkeley, Massachusetts, formerly in Dighton, and marked with a curious inscription. It attracted early attention on the part of antiquaries. Rafn in 1837 declared that its markings were a runic inscription of the Northmen, relating to the expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefne, but this view has generally been abandoned, though the central portion may be Norse.
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Digit is an old measurement reckoned as the breadth of a finger or 0.75 inches (19 mm).
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Dika is a vegetable fat obtained from the seeds of a West African tree, genus Irvingia, used in making fine soaps.
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Dikamali is a resin exuding from Indian trees of the genus Gardenia, a solution of which was formerly used to dress wounds and open sores.
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In logic, a dilemma (named from the Greek dis, twice, and lemma, an assumption), is a form of argument used to prove the falsehood or absurdity of some assertion, as in the following instance:
If he did go he must be either foolish or wicked; but we know he is neither foolish nor wicked; therefore he cannot have done so. The two suppositions, which are equally untenable, are called the 'horns' of the dilemma.
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Dilettante is an Italian expression, signifying a lover of the arts and science, who devotes his leisure to them as a means of amusement and gratification, being thus nearly equivalent to amateur. In 1734 a number of gentlemen founded in London a Dilettanti Society, which published a splendid work on Ionian Antiquities, 1769-1881 in four volumes; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, 1809, 1835; etc.
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A diligence was a French stage-coach. It was the national vehicle on the regular routes; had four wheels, two compartments, a deck, and a dickey; and was drawn by from four to seven horses.
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Dillies were stagecoaches first run in Britain in 1770. Their name derived from the French diligence, a four-wheeled stage coach drawn by four or more horses and common in France at the time.
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In grammar, a diminutive is a word having a special affix which conveys the idea of littleness, and all other ideas connected with this, as tenderness, affection, contempt, etc. The opposite of diminutive is augmentative. In Latin, diminutives almost always ended in lus, la, or lum; as Tulliola, meum corculum, little Tullia, my dear or little heart; homunculus, a manikin. The Italian is particularly rich in diminutives and augmentatives, such compound diminutives as fratellinucciettinetto (a diminutive of frate, brother) being sometimes employed. Among English diminutive affixes are kin, as in manikin, a little man: pipkin, a little pipe: ling, as in gosling, a little goose; darling, that is, dearling, or little dear; and et, as in pocket, from poke, a bag or pouch; tablet, a little table. Diminutives are also formed, in colloquial and familiar language, by adding y or ie to the names, as Charley, Mousie, etc.
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Dimity is a strong cotton material with raised patterns, usually white, used for curtains and especially bed-curtains during the 18th and 19th centuries.
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Diocletian (C Valerius Diocletianus, surnamed Jovius) was a Dalmatian Emperor of Rome. A man of mean birth, he was proclaimed Emperor of Rome by the army in 284 AD. He defeated Carinus in Mossia in 286, conquered the Allemanni, and was generally beloved for the goodness of his disposition, but was compelled by the dangers threatening Rome to share the government with M. Aurelius Valerius Maximian. In 292 Galerius and Constantius Chlorus were also raised to a share in the empire, which was thus divided into four parts, of which Diocletian administered Thrace, Egypt, Syria, and Asia. As the result of his reconstitution of the empire there followed a period of brilliant successes in which the barbarians were driven back from all the frontiers, and Roman power restored from Britain to Egypt. In 305, in conjunction with Maximian, he resigned the imperial dignity at Nicomedia, and retired to Salona in Dalmatia, where he cultivated his garden in tranquillity until his death in 313. In the latter part of his reign he was induced to sanction a persecution of the Christians.
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A Diomedean swap is an exchange in which all the benefit is on one side.
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Diorama is a mode of painting and of scenic exhibition invented by Messrs. Daguerre and Bouton, and first exhibited in 1823. It secures a higher degree of illusion than the ordinary panorama, by a mode of uniting transparent painting to the usual opaque method, and causing the light to fall upon the picture both from before and behind. At the same time, by means of coloured transparent blinds, suspended both above and behind the picture, the rays of light can be intercepted and made to fall at pleasure in graduated tints upon every part of the picture in succession. The term is now populary applied to small-scal tableau or models in which three dimensional figures are shown against a painted background, and stuffed animals etc are displayed against a natural scene.
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A diota was a Roman vessel used for water or wine. It had a narrow neck, a full body, and two handles. The form and sized varied, but it was generally made tall and narrow, and terminating in a point which could be put in a stand or into the ground to keep the vessel upright. Several were found in the cellars of Pompeii standing upright in the ground.
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The dip of the horizon is an allowance made in all astronomical observations of altitude for the height of the eye above the level of the sea.
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A diphthong is a coalition or union of two vowels pronounced in one syllable. In uttering a proper diphthong both vowels are pronounced; the sound is not simple, but the two sounds are so blended as to be considered as forming one syllable, as in void, tough. The term improper diphthong is applied to the union in one syllable of two or more vowels, of which only one is sounded, as in bean.
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Diplomacy is the science or art of conducting negotiations, arranging treaties, etc, between nations; the branch of knowledge which deals with the relations of independent states to one another; the agency or management of envoys accredited to a foreign court; the forms of international negotiations. The Cardinal de Richelieu is generally considered as the founder of that regular and uninterrupted intercourse between governments which exists at present between almost all countries; though the instructions given by Machiavelli to one of his friends, who was sent by the Florentine Republic to Charles V (Charles I of Spain) show that Richelieu was not the first to conceive the advantages that might be derived from the correspondence of an intelligent agent accredited at the seat of a foreign government. Diplomatic agents are of several degrees: 1, ambassadors; 2, envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary; 3, ministers resident;
4, charges d'affaires; 5, secretaries of legation and attaches. Their rank was regulated in Europe, in the above order, by the congress assembled at Vienna in 1814. Amongst the European powers it is agreed that of ministers of the same rank he who arrives first shall have the precedence over his colleagues.
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The Diplomatic Protection Group is a squad of about 500 armed police officers of Scotland Yard focused on responding to the needs of London's diplomatic community. The squad's duties include protecting embassies from terrorist attacks.
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Diplomatics was originally the science of deciphering ancient ,manuscripts. It laid down certain principles for the systematic examination of public documents, and taught the forms and styles adopted in them, the titles and rank of public officers subscribing them, etc. Among the earliest exponents of diplomatics were Papebroeck, an Antwerp Jesuit in 1675, and Mabillon (De re Dipiomatica, 1681).
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Directory was the name given to a body of five officers to whom the executive authority in France was committed by the constitution of the year III (1795). The two legislative bodies, called the councils, elected the members of the directory: one member was obliged to retire yearly, and his place was supplied by election. This body was invested with the authority, which, by the constitution of 1791, had been granted to the king. By the revolution of the 18th Brumaire the directory and the constitution of the year III were abolished. It was succeeded by the consulate.
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A dirt-closet is a form of toilet in which rather than the waste being flushed away to a sewage treatment plant, as happens in a water-closet, the waste is collected in a bucket and then dry earth is poured over the top. The dry earth quickly absorbs the moisture from the waste, preventing it from smelling, and also enables appropriate bacteria to quickly establish themselves and biodegrade the waste into safe matter. The dirt from a dirt-closet may be reused up to five times, and then forms an excellent fertiliser for plants. The domestic dirt-close was popular during the 19th century, until the water-closet gained in popularity. Dirt-closets are environmentally friendly, cheap to operate and produce a useful by-product. Unfortunately they require maintenance, as the bucket in which the waste and dirt collects has to be emptied, and the hopper for the dirt filled.
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A discipline was a scourge used by Roman Catholics for penitential purposes.
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In art, discord is the effect of reversing the natural tonal order of colours. Colours naturally progress from pale yellow to dark violet, as in rainbow.
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In law, a Disorderly House is a house where persons meet for unlawful purposes, such as a brothel or gaming-house. The term was formerly used to describe a house kept for immoral purposes, especially a brothel or similar house, and the keeping of such houses was punishable as a nuisance.
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A dispensary was formerly, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, a charitable institution for the free supply of medicine to the poor. Each institution had one or more physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, who attended at stated times in order to prescribe for the sick, and, if necessary, to visit them at their own habitations. A note from a subscriber or governor was usually required by would-be patients. Provident dispensaries were similar institutions in which a small fee is exacted.
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Dispensation is the act by which an exception is made to the rigour of the law in favour of some person. The pope may release from all oaths or vows, and may sanction a marriage within the prohibited degrees of the Mosaic law, or exempt from obedience to the disciplinary enactments of the canon law. In England the monarch claimed, in former times, a similar dispensing power in civil law, but the prerogative was so much abused by James II that it was abolished by the Bill of Rights. The power of commuting sentences in capital cases was the only form in which the dispensing power of the crown remained. In ecclesiastical matters a bishop may grant a dispensation allowing a clergyman to hold more than one benefice, or to absent himself from his parish.
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The dissolution of the monasteries in England was carried out by Henry VIII between 1535 and 1539. This was an attack on Church property for three reasons. First, the monks were the main supporters of the Papal authority in England, and they were members of orders which were spread over Europe. It had proved possible to separate the English bishops and clergy from allegiance to the Pope; this was not possible with the monastic orders, which were international, not insular, institutions. The second reason was the wealth of the monasteries, which was the result of the pious bequest of many centuries. The cry against monastic wealth had been raised many times previously in English history, particularly by John Wycliffe and others from the time of Edward III and Richard II. The courtiers of Henry VIII and the rising middle class were greedy for land, and Henry VIII saw that by ministering to their greed he could make his new nobility and their new property a firm support of his Reformation. The third reason for ending the monasteries was
the reason given to Parliament: that the monks had outlived their day of usefulness and were abandoned to idleness and vice. There were over 600 religious houses in England, and no doubt there was some truth in this charge. Zealous churchmen had long known that all was not well with these ancient institutions. In Henry VII's reign the Oxford Reformers had rebuked monkish follies, and Cardinal Morton had noted the 'incurable uselessness' of many of the smaller houses where the monks were idle and ignorant. Cardinal Wolsey had obtained a Papal Bull to visit the monasteries, and had begun to suppress some, intending to use their revenues for the benefit of education and the New Learning and to found new bishoprics. One of them, St. Frideswide's Priory at Oxford, he converted into Cardinal College (later Christ Church).
In 1535 Henry VIII made Thomas Cromwell his Vicar-General, 'with power to visit any monastery in England'. The character of Cromwell was sufficient guarantee that the visitation would not be conducted fairly. He knew what was expected of him; he was to be 'The Hammer of the Monks'. His agents hurried through England, visited some of the monasteries, and drew up an evil report. This report unfortunately no longer exists. Our only information is derived from Cromwell's note-books and from the letters of his agents, from which we may gather something of their methods. For example, Dr. Layton, vicar of Harrow-on-the-Hill, dashed through southern England from Gloucestershire to Rent between August and October 1535. He condemned monasteries wholesale, on insufficient evidence, although at the same time he did not scruple to accept bribes from some, or to help himself to plate and jewels from others.
However, Parliament was satisfied, and the country squires, anxious for the 'goods of the Church', shouted ' Down with them!' The Act dissolving 276 of the lesser monasteries of England in 1536 was the last important Act of the Reformation Parliament. In dissolving the smaller monasteries first, Henry VIII had cautiously tested his power. But his violent measures had by 1536 caused grave discontent, especially in the west and north, and in Parliament itself. His wholesale destruction of the smaller monasteries was followed by two popular uprisings. The first occurred in Lincolnshire, where the rebels were crushed by a military force under the Duke of Suffolk. The second rising, in Yorkshire in 1536, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, was much more serious. The following year the famous shrine of Becket at Canterbury was attacked. Thomas Becket was declared in April 1538 'a false saint and a traitor to the Supreme Head of the Church'; his bones were burnt; his shrine pillaged and its offerings confiscated.
Then Henry VIII was ready to turn his attention to the greater monasteries, although Parliament had saved them earlier because of their good conduct. Cromwell and his agents in 1539 began a persecution of the abbots: many were induced to surrender their abbeys to the king; others could only be reduced by methods of terror. The Abbots of Reading and Colchester were tried for treason; the Abbot of Glastonbury for felony. All three were executed. The odious methods of Cromwell are well shown in some notes left in his own handwriting: 'To see that the evidence be well sorted and the indictments well drawn against the said abbots. The Abbot of Reading to be sent down to be tried and executed at Reading with his accomplices. The Abbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and also executed there with his accomplices.' The last Abbot of Glastonbury, a pious, venerable man beloved in the countryside, was executed with two of his brethren on Glastonbury Tor, after a mock trial in November 1539. These ferocities had the desired effect: many less brave spirits gave in, and soon there were no monasteries left. The dissolution of 616 religious houses was the greatest revolution in the ownership of land in England since the Norman Conquest. The monastic income has been variously estimated at between one-fifth and one-third of the total rental of England.
This newly acquired wealth the king might have used in developing public works, such as education. Some of it was spent in re-building the Navy; but the king's own greed and the greed of courtiers swallowed most of the spoil. A thousand newly enriched families became the nobility on which Henry in future relied for support. The 'Abbey' where the descendants or successors of these Tudor families now live is a name to be found in many an English village. But sad indeed was the fate of the original buildings. Some, like the great church at Tewkesbury, have been preserved in the form of parish churches; others have been partly preserved to form cathedrals. But the greater number were ruthlessly destroyed by their new possessors, their roofs despoiled for the valuable lead, their walls made quarries for new buildings, their treasures scattered, and their ruins left desolate. Whatever defence may be made for the suppression of the monastic orders, no excuse can be offered for this orgy of destruction, which deprived England of some of her noblest monuments.
It is probable that at least 15000 persons were cast adrift. These people went to swell the already large number of the unemployed, for whom Tudor statesmanship could find no better relief than the savage punishments inflicted on thieves and vagabonds. Some of the monks were given benefices or pensioned by the Government, but the pensions were not always paid; the occupants of the lesser houses fared worse than those of the greater. The hospitality which the monks had always given to the poor was now removed. There was nothing to take its place, and many monks and nuns joined the ranks of those who had formerly subsisted on their charity. Many gaps were left in national life, for the abbeys, said Aske 'were one of the beauties of this realm to all men and strangers passing through the same; all gentlemen much succoured in their needs with money, and in nunneries their daughters brought up in virtue. And such abbeys as were near the danger of seabanks were great maintainers of sea-walls and dykes, builders of bridges and highways, and such other things for the commonwealth.'
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In painting, distemper is a preparation of opaque colour mixed in a watery glue, such as size, eggwhite or gum. It was used chiefly in scene-painting and in paper for walls during the 19th ecntury, but was employed in the higher departments of art before the introduction of oil-painting in the 16th century. Distemper is painted on a dry surface, fresco on wet mortar or plaster.
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A distich is a couplet of verses, especially one consisting of a Latin or Greek hexameter and pentameter, making complete sense.
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In law, distress is the taking of a personal chattel of a wrong-doer or a tenant, in order to obtain satisfaction for the wrong done, or for rent or service due. If the party whose goods are seized disputes the injury, service, duty, or rent, on account of which the distress is taken, he may replevy the things taken, giving bonds to return them or pay damage in case the party making the distress shows that the wrong has been done, or the service or rent is due. Another kind of distress is that of attachment, to compel a party to appear before a court when summoned. The distresses most frequently made are on account of rent and taxes and damage-feasance.
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A ditch is a trench in the earth made by digging, particularly the term is used for a trench for draining wet land, or for making a fence to guard inclosures, or for preventing an enemy from approaching a town or fortress. In the latter sense it is called also a fosse or moat, and is dug round the rampart or wall between tho scarp and counterscarp.
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A dithyrambus or dithyramb is, in Greek literature, a poem sung in honour of the god Bacchus or Dionysus, at his festivals. It was composed in a lofty and often inflated style: hence the term is applied to any poem of an impetuous and irregular character.
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Originally, in England, a divan was a coffee house where smoking was the chief attraction.
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Divi-divi, Libi-dibi or Libi-davi is the name of the pods of Coesalpinia coriaria, a tree which grows in tropical America, and a member of the family which yields sapan, brazil, and other red woods. The pods are about 25 mm broad and 76 mm long, but are generally bent or curled up; are excessively astringent, containing a large proportion of tannic and gallic acid, for which reason they are used by tanners and dyers.
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Divination is the act of divining; a foretelling future events, or discovering things secret or obscure, by the aid of superior beings, or by other than human means. In ancient times divination was divided into two kinds, natural and artificial. Natural divination was supposed to be effected by a kind of inspiration or divine afflatus; artificial divination was effected by certain rites, experiments, or observations, as by sacrifices, observation of entrails and flight of birds, lots, omens, position of the stars, etc.
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Divine Right was the claim set up by some sovereigns or their supporters to the absolute obedience of subjects as ruling by appointment of God, insomuch that, although they may themselves submit to restrictions on their authority, yet subjects endeavouring to enforce those restrictions by resistance to their sovereign's acts are considered guilty of a sin. This doctrine, so celebrated in English constitutional history, especially in the time of the Stuarts, may now be considered to be exploded.
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Diving is the art or act of descending into water to considerable depths, and remaining there for a time. The uses of diving are important, particularly in fishing for pearls, corals, sponges, examining the foundations of bridges, recovering valuables from sunken ships, and the like. Without the aid of artificial appliances a skilful diver may remain under water for two, or even three minutes and rarely longer. Various methods have been proposed and engines contrived to render diving more safe and easy. The great object in all these is to furnish the diver with fresh air, without which he must either make but a short stay under water or perish.
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A divining rod is a rod, usually of hazel, with two forked branches, used by persons who profess to discover minerals or water under ground. The rod, if carried slowly along by the forked ends, dips and points downwards, it is affirmed, when brought over the spot where the concealed mineral or water is to be found. The use of the divining-rod is still common in many parts, and during the Victorian era various wonderful instances of its efficacy in discovering water were published in respectable prints.
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In parliament, division is the mode of determining a question at the end of a debate. In the House of Commons the speaker puts the question, and declares whether in his opinion the 'Ayes' or the 'Noes' have it. Should his opinion not be acquiesced in by the minority, the house is cleared, and the 'Ayes' directed to go into the right lobby and the 'Noes' into the left, where they are counted by two tellers appointed for each party. In the House of Lords the two sides in a division are called 'Contents' and 'Not-contents.'
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Divorce is a separation, by law, of husband and wife, and is either a divorce a vinculo matrimonii, that is, a complete dissolution of the marriage bonds, or a divorce a mensa et thoro (from bed and board), whereby the parties are legally separated, but not unmarried.
The causes admitted by different codes of laws as grounds for the modification or entire dissolution of the marriage contract, as well as the description of tribunal which has jurisdiction of the proceedings, and the form of the proceedings, are various.
Divorce was permitted by the law of Moses, but forbidden in the New Testament, except for unchastity. The early laws of Rome permitted the husband to divorce his wife for adultery and many other alleged offences. The facility of divorce continued, without restriction, under the Roman emperors, but as the modern nations of Europe emerged from the ruins of the Roman Empire, they adopted the doctrine of the New Testament. Marriage, under the Roman Church, instead of a civil contract, came to be considered a sacrament of the church, which it was unlawful to dissolve. The ecclesiastical courts could indeed annul a marriage, but only for a cause that existed at the time the marriage was contracted, such as prior contracts, impotency, etc. For any cause arising after marriage they could only pronounce a divorce a mensa et thoro, which did not leave either party free to marry again, except by papal dispensation.
A divorce a vinculo matrimonii, for any cause arising subsequent to marriage, could formerly be obtained in England only by an act of parliament, and the ecclesiastical courts must have previously pronounced a divorce a mensa et thoro. The act passed in 1857, however, established a new court for trying divorce causes, called the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, subsequently absorbed into the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice.
In Victorian England, the husband could obtain a divorce for simple adultery; but if the wife is the petitioner, she had to show that her husband had been guilty of certain kinds of adultery, or of adultery coupled with desertion or gross cruelty. Either party could marry again after divorce. A divorce could not be obtained if it appeared that the petitioner had been guilty of the same offence, or that there had been collusion between the parties to obtain a divorce, or if they had condoned the offence by living together as man and wife after discovery. The husband could claim damages from the adulterer, and the court could also order the adulterer to pay the costs of the proceedings, in whole or in part. The act also abolished divorces a mensa et thoro, substituting, however, judicial separations. Since the late 20th century, divorce in Britain England has become a simple affair with either party simply having to claim that the marriage has broken down irretrievably.
A decree for a divorce is always in the first instance a decree nisi. In Scotland, from the time of the Reformation, divorce might be obtained by either party on the ground of adultery, marriage being held to be only a civil contract, and as such under the jurisdiction of the civil courts. Condonation or collusion was sufficient to prevent a divorce from being obtained on the ground of adultery, but not recrimination, that is, a counter charge of adultery. Wilful desertion was also held a valid reason for divorce.
In France divorce was legalized in 1884, with conditions, after having been prohibited for many years.
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Docetae was the name given, in the earlier ages of the Christian church, to those who denied the reality of the human form of Christ, maintaining it to be merely a phantom or shadow. In the sense of regarding Christ's body as a heavenly and ethereal, instead of a human one, docetism had its partisans even among the orthodox.
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The Doctor Wind is a prevailing daytime breeze which blows onto the island of Jamaica from the sea.
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The Doctors' Commons was a college founded for the Doctors of the Civil Law in London, and was at one time the seat of the court of arches, the archdeacon's court, the court of admiralty, etc. The practitioners in these courts were called advocates and proctors. In 1857 an act was passed empowering the college to sell its property and dissolve, and making the privileges of the proctors common to all solicitors.
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The dog days are the hottest part of the year in Europe, being part of July and August. Formerly the dog days were specifically the period of about forty days during which Sirius, the dog-star, rises approximately with the sun.
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A dog-cart was a sort of double-seated gig for four persons, those before and those behind sitting back to back; it was often furnished with a boot for holding dogs.
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Dogging is the English name for the past time of having sex in a parked car while being watched by other people. Couples perform sex acts upon each other within the car, parked in a public car park, while being observed by an audience. Couples wishing to attract an audience signal their desire by turning on the interior light of the car, or having coloured interior lighting in the car.
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A dogma is an article of religious belief, one of the doctrines of the Christian faith. The history of dogmas, as a branch of theology, exhibits in a historical way the origin and the changes of the various Christian systems of belief, showing what opinions were received by the various sects in different ages of Christianity, the sources of the different creeds, by what arguments they were attacked and supported, what degrees of importance were attached to them in different ages, the circumstances by which they were affected, and the mode in which the dogmas were combined into systems.
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Dogmatics is a systematic arrangement of the articles of Christian faith (dogmas), or the branch of theology that deals with them. The first attempt to furnish a complete and coherent system of Christian dogmas was made by Origen in the 3rd century.
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A doiley was a small ornamental napkin, originally used at table to set glasses on at dessert, and later for setting cakes on at tea. By the late 20th century the use of doileys was almost over.
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In geography the doldrums is a region of calms and baffling winds near the equator.
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Dolichocephalic is a term used in ethnology to denote those skulls in which the diameter from side to side is less in proportion to the longitudinal diameter (i.e. from front to back) than 8 to 10.
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A dolly shop was formerly a shop where rags and refuse were bought and sold. They were so called on account of the sign of a black doll suspended outside the shop.
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Dolly Varden is a character in Charles Dickens's novel Barnaby Rudge. Daughter of the locksmith Gabriel Varden, and the belle of the countryside, she marries Joe Willet and lives with him at the Maypole Inn.
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A dolos is an animal bone, usually a knuckle bone, used for divination.
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The Domesday Book is a record of the survey conducted in England in 1086 by officials of William The Conqueror so as to assess taxes etc. The Domesday Book contains a survey of almost all the lands in England. The survey was made by commissioners, who collected the information in each district from a sworn jury consisting of sheriffs, lords of manors, presbyters, bailiffs, villeins - all the classes, in short, interested in the matter. The extent, tenure, value, and proprietorship of the land in each district, the state of culture, and in some cases the number of tenants, villeins, serfs, etc, were the matters chiefly recorded. The survey was completed within a year. Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and Westmoreland were not included in the survey, probably for the reason that William's authority was not then (in 1086) settled in those parts. The original Domesday Book consists of two volumes, one folio and one quarto. It has been republished a few times, a perfect facsimile of the original being published in 1861-1865.
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Domestic Animals are animals such as are reared and kept by man, and are to some extent in a tame state; as the dog, cat, cow, sheep, pigs, horse, donkey, elephant, camel, llama, reindeer, etc.
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Domestic Economy is a term employed to include matters pertaining to food and cookery, clothing, laundry work, fire and. light, sanitation and hygiene, etc.
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Domestic servants, also known as domestics, are members of a household employed to assist with the running of various aspects of the household. During the 18th century in England servants were commonplace, with almost all employed families able to afford servants, or rather domestic drudges, who were supplied from the workhouses and charity schools and treated little better than slaves for the most part. While in apprenticeship female domestic drudges, or scullery-maids also known as scullions, were not paid and could not leave their mistress. Even less fortunate were charwomen, employed for odd work or single days to assist in the kitchen and paid with just a few scraps of food and a few coals.
Page boys, usually black, were employed by the fashionable women of 18th century London to precede her and hand refreshments to her guests. Footmen were similarly employed more for show than labour to impress the guests and people one met on ones travels, hence they received their slang name of 'fart catchers', from their position of walking behind their master or mistress, dressed up in fancy clothes provided by the household as a form of uniform for the job.
By the 19th century conditions had improved for some servants, though for the lower staff they were still appalling. In the mid-19th century Mrs Beeton, the famous author, lists domestic servants in order of rank as follows:
Households would employ a election of servants varying upon the household income, a very wealthy household employing a full selection of servants, a less fabulously wealthy household maybe just employing a housekeeper, a cook or a maid-of-all-work. A chamberlain being only employed by the king or noblemen of very high position. In the mid-19th century most households which employed servants employed two or three male servants, comprising a servant out of livery, or a butler, a footman and a coachman, or a coachman and a groom where the household had more than two or three horses. A popular mis-conception is that cooks are, and were, always female. Not so. Male cooks were also employed in the 19th century and were paid more than their female counterpart.
Each domestic servant had their own scope of duties or responsibilities, though these overlapped depending upon the number of domestic servants employed. A butler, for example, where only one footman was employed would be required to perform some of the duties of a valet, to pay bills and to superintend the other servants.
19th century English society was warned against abusing its servants, for, as Mrs Beeton puts it; "The sensible master and kind mistress know, that if servants depend on them for their means of living, in their turn they are dependent on their servants for very many of the comforts of life; and that, with a proper amount of care in choosing servants, and treating them like reasonable beings, and making slight excuses for the shortcomings of human nature, they will, save in some exceptional case, be tolerably well served, and in most instances, surround themselves with attached domestics." It was possible for domestic servants to progress up the ranks, usually through leaving one position and seeking a higher appointment at another employer. In order to achieve this a servant required a good reference from their employer, and this encouraged a degree of honesty in a position with a lot of opportunity for misappropriation.
The Great War instigated a great deal more equality in British society and the use of domestic servants greatly reduced, though it was still not extinct in the 21st century.
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A domicile is the country or place of a person's permanent home, which may differ from that of his nationality or place of residence. Domicile is determined by both the physical fact of residence and the continued intention of remaining there. For example, a citizen of a foreign country who is resident in Britain is not necessarily domiciled there unless he intends to make it his permanent home. Under the common law, it is domicile and not residence or nationality that determines a person's civil status, including the capacity to marry. A corporation may also have a domicile, which is determined by its place of registration.
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Dominant ideology means the principal ideas, values and morals in a given society. It is a particular version of reality but only one of a number of possible versions. These ideas may, however, be so well established that members of society believe them to be naturally given and beyond question (like when people thought the earth was flat). It is possible for different ideologies to exist within a given society different versions of reality but they lack the persuasive power and generalised acceptance enjoyed by the
dominant ideology. Marxist sociologists have pointed out that ideologies are rarely neutral, and serve to justify and support the interests of a powerful social group over less-powerful groups. The dominant ideology thesis asserts that working-class subordination in capitalist societies is largely the outcome of the cultural dominance achieved by the capitalist class. For Marx, the ruling ideas in a given society are always the ideas of the ruling social group. This theory is well supported by evidence of the general blind acceptance of the 'goodness' of pharmaceuticals purveyed by the immensely powerful pharmaceutical industries in the west, despite negative evidence such as dependency and side effects. Feminine sociologists make a similar point, but starting from a different premise. Some sociologists, such as Abercrombie, criticise the dominant ideology thesis, arguing that its proponents overestimate the extent to which different groups are integrated into the dominant culture, and underestimate the extent to which different
groups can generate ideas which run counter to dominant ideologies. However, evidence to support this criticism is sparse, but contrary evidence is widespread in the persecution of Copernicus, Galileo, and the 20th century AIDS dissidents, all of which questioned a dominant ideology only to be hounded and ridiculed at the time.
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A dominatrix is a woman who plays the dominant role in sex games, typically those of a bondage, sado-masochistic or slave and master variety. Usually, a dominatrix is depicted in black leather, frequently with a military-style peaked cap, thigh length, stiletto heeled boots and a whip, and the sex games are of a sado-masochistic nature, the other participant or participants being known as submissives or 'subs', and being subjected to degrees of humiliation or ordering about by the dominatrix.
The dominatrix is a popular figure in sex games, particularly among executive business men who find their daily lives an endless stress of decision making, and appreciate having the responsibility for making decisions taken away from them for a short while during an effective role-reversal recreation.
Sex games involving the dominatrix traverse the spectrum of sado-masochism and slave-master sex from the benign - such as being ordered which sexual positions to adopt, through body worship (being instructed to kiss the dominatrix feet and other parts of the body), through the more strict corporal punishment involving spanking, caning, whipping etc and also varying levels of humiliation. Typical humiliation games include the submissive participant or participants being ordered to crawl about like a dog, being handcuffed, tied or otherwise restrained in bondage, and may involve the submissive male participant being dressed in women's clothes, or being ordered to clean the floor or even toilet bowl with their tongue.
During such games the submissives always refer to the dominatrix as 'mistress' or 'madam', and maintain a suitably servile and submissive nature, unless deliberately courting 'correction' for misbehaviour or cheekiness.
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In chronology, dominical letters, properly called Sunday letters, are the seven letters of the alphabet, A B C D E F G, used in almanacs, ephemerides, etc, to mark the first seven days of the year and all consecutive sets of seven days to the end of the year, so that the letter for Sunday will always be the same. If the number of days in the year were divisible by seven without remainder, then the year would constantly begin with the same day of the week; but as it is the year begins and ends on the same day, and therefore the next year will begin on the day following, and on leap years two days following, so that the same series is not repeated until after four times seven or twenty-eight years.
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Dominium was a term in the Roman law used to signify full ownership of a thing.
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Don Quixote is the title of a famous romance by Cervantes. The name of the hero, Don Quixote, is used as a synonym for foolish knight-errantry or extravagant generosity.
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On August the 4th 1842 the Congress of the USA passed a donation act for the Territory of East Florida. Persons who could bear arms were allowed one quarter section of land upon which to settle. On September the 27th, 1850, a donation act was passed for Oregon, granting settlers from 160 to 640 acres.
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Dora The Explorer is an American animated cartoon television show for young children created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh, and Eric Weiner which aims to teach problem solving skills and basic Spanish (with a view to making children curious about other languages). Dora The Explorer is about a young girl of Latin ethnicity who has exploring adventures which usually end-up with her rescuing someone or searching for some lost item. Dora The Explorer first aired on the Satellite television channel Nick Jr in 2000.
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A Dorcas Society (named after Dorcas mentioned in Acts IX), is an association generally composed of ladies for supplying clothes to the poor. Frequently the members of the society meet at stated times and worked in common. Partial payment is generally required from all recipients except the very poor. Dorcas Societies were very active in Britain between the mid-19th and mid 20th centuries. The Douglas Dorcas Society of the Isle of Man was the longest-established Douglas charity, being instituted on December the 1st, 1834.
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In 1623, under the lead of the Reverend John White, certain English Puritans, wearied of King Charles' persecutions, formed the Dorchester Company, for trading and fishing, and established a settlement at Cape Ann in America. The company was dissolved in 1626, but was revived in 1628 by a number of wealthy Englishmen, and John Endicott assumed the government at Naumkeag, now Salem, whither the first settlers had removed. In 1629 the company was enlarged and, obtaining a royal charter, formed the Massachusetts Bay colony.
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Dornick is a kind of stout figured linen fabric used for table-cloths, and generally chequered.
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Dornock is a stout, figured linen formerly much used for tablecloths. It is named after the town in Scotland where it was formerly made.
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The Dorr Rebellion was an effort made between 1840 and 1842 to overturn the State government of Rhode Island by revolutionary means. After the Declaration of Independence, Rhode Island retained her charter government. Many of the citizens, headed by Thomas Dorr, of Providence, became discontented with the existing government and its limited suffrage. Mass meetings were held, and in October, 1841, a convention of delegates prepared a Constitution, which was submitted to a popular vote, and was claimed to have received a majority of the votes of the State. The legitimate government treated these proceedings as nugatory, and, in a measure, criminal. On May the 3rd, 1842, the 'suffrage legislature' assembled at Newport, with Thomas Dorr as Governor. King, the legitimate Governor, proclaimed martial law. The suffrage party appealed to arms. Their troops were dispersed and Thomas Dorr fled. He was afterward captured and convicted of treason, but was pardoned in 1852.
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The dosah (treading) was a ceremony which used to be performed at Cairo on the return of the holy carpet from Mecca. The sheik of the Sa'di dervishes rode on horseback over the bodies of devotees, killing some, injuring others more or less severely; those who escaped unhurt were deemed to be specially honoured by god. The rite was suppressed by the Khedive in 1884.
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A doss was a hassock stuffed with straw to forma bed. From which evolved the modern slang term for to sleep, and a cheap lodging house.
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The Douai Bible is the English translation of the Bible used among English-speaking Roman Catholics, and executed by divines connected with the English College at Douai. The New Testament was published in 1582 at Rheims, the Old in 1609-10 at Douai, the translation being based on the Vulgate. Various revisions have since materially altered it.
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In law, double jeopardy refers to subjecting someone to a second trial or course of punishment for an offence for which they have already been tried or punished.
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The double-headed eagle is a familiar symbol which originates from the German eagle which is depicted looking right, and the Russian eagle which is depicted looking left. When Charlemagne was made Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire he joined the two symbolic eagles together to form a double-headed eagle looking simultaneously both east and west.
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The Douglas Dragonfly was a British touring motorbike developed under the name of the Dart, and produced as the Dragonfly from 1953 until 1956. The Douglas Dragonfly was powered by a 348cc horizontally-opposed twin-cylinder four stroke engine providing a top speed of 75 mph through a four-speed gear box. Although attractively designed, and with a very large capacity fuel tank, the Douglas Dragonfly had poor brakes and a low cruising speed which made it unpopular, and only about 1500 were made.
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A dovetail is a wedge-shaped tenon. Dovetails are frequently used in quality cabinet making for strong joints between pieces of wood.
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Downing College is one of the colleges of the University of Cambridge, chartered in 1800 and opened in 1821. Its founder was Sir George Downing, a Cambridgeshire gentleman.
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Downs is a term given to undulating grassy hills or uplands, specially applied to two ranges of undulating chalk hills in England, extending through Surrey, Kent, and Hampshire, known as the North and South Downs. The word is sometimes used as equivalent to dunes or sand-hills.
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Dr Finlay's Casebook was a British BBC drama television series created by A J Cronin, starring Bill Simpson, about a doctor in a Scottish village practice during the 1920's. Dr Finlay's Casebook ran from 1962 to 1971.
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Dr Who is a British BBC science-fiction television series for children, created in part by Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert, and originally starring William Hartnell, in stories about a renegade alien able to travel through space and time, known as a 'Time Lord', battling evil through space and time, equipped with a time machine which looked like a 1960's police telephone box - the TARDIS - and later a 'sonic screwdriver'. Dr Who ran from 1963 to 1989, before being returned in 2005 following public demand. Dr Who is remarkable for many things, not least making eerily accurate predictions about future life; in the first story, shown in 1963, the British adoption of the decimal money system was correctly predicted and in a later story a British female Prime Minister was predicted.
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A drag was a long coach or carriage, generally uncovered and seated round the sides.
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A drag-net is a net drawn along the bottom of a river, pond or the sea in order to catch fish. In Victorian England, the use of drag-nets was generally prohibited in rivers where fish breed, on environmental grounds as a drag-net takes all fish indiscriminately.
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Dragon was the Celtic word for a Chief. This has led to confusion through history where writers refer to a dragon being slain by a knight, and readers confuse the reality of a Celtic chief being killed, with that of a knight battling a massive fire-breathing, winged reptile.
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The Dragon of Wantley (Warncliff, Yorkshire) is an English legend about More of More Hall who slayed a monster. The story recounts how More procures a suit of armour studded with spikes and proceeded to the well where the dragon had his lair. Once their, the hero kicked the dragon in his mouth - the only vulnerable part - and killed it.
An explanation for the legend is provided by Dr Percy who says that the 'dragon' was actually an overgrown, rascally attorney, who had cheated some children of their estate, but who was made to disgorge by a gentleman named More, who went against him, armed with the spikes of the law, after which the attorney died of vexation.
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Dragon's-tail was the old palmistry name for the line marking the separation between the hand and the arm.
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The Dragonnades, or Dragonades was the name given to the persecutions directed against the Protestants chiefly in the south of France, during the reign of Louis XIV. Bands of soldiers, headed by priests, marched through the villages, giving the Protestant inhabitants the alternative of renouncing their faith or being given over to the extortions and violence of the soldiery. The dragoons were conspicuous in these expeditions, to which they gave their name. The Dragonnades drove thousands of French Protestants out of France.
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A drain-trap, a contrivance to prevent the escape of foul air from drains, but to allow the passage of water into them. The most common form is a bent pipe resembling a letter U, whence the name U-bend, found in the plumbing of sinks and toilets.
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In agriculture, draining is a method of improving the soil by withdrawing the water from it by means of channels that are generally covered over. The successful practice of draining in a great measure depends on a proper knowledge of the superficial strata, of their situation, relative degrees of porosity, etc. Some strata allow water to pass through them, while others more impervious force it to run or filtrate along their surfaces until it reaches more level ground below. In general where the grounds are in a great measure flat and the soils of materials which retain the excess of moisture, they require artificial means of drainage to render them capable of yielding good crops whether of' grain or grass.
The wetness of land which makes it inferior for agricultural purposes, may appear not only as surface-water but as water which flows through the lower strata, and to draw off these there are the two distinct operations of surface-draining' and under-draining. The rudest form of open drains are the deep furrows lying between high-backed ridges, and meant to carry off the surplus water after the soil is completely saturated, but in doing so they generally carry off also much of the best of the soil and of the manure which has been spread upon it. The ordinary ditch is a common form of water-course useful in certain cases, as in hill pastures. But covered drains at a depth of one metre or so are the common forms in draining agricultural lands. They are generally either stone-drains or tile-drains. Stone-drains are either formed on the plan of open culverts of various forms, or of small stones in sufficient quantity to permit a free and speedy filtration of the water through them. The box-drain, for instance, is formed of flat stones neatly arranged in the bottom of the trench, the whole forming an open tube.
In tile-drains, tiles or pipes of burnt clay are used for forming the conduits. They possess all the qualities which are required in the formation of drains, affording a free ingress to water, while they effectually exclude vermin, earth, and other injurious substances.
Drainage tiles and pipes have been made in a great variety of forms, the earliest of which, since the introduction of thorough draining, was the horse-shoe tile, so called from its shape. These should always rest on soles, or flats of burned clay. Pipe tiles, which combine the sole and cover in one piece, have been made of various shapes, but the best form appears to be the cylinder.
An important department of draining is the draining off of the waters which are the sources of springs. Sometimes the judicious application of a few simple drains, made to communicate with the watery layers, will often dry swamps of great extent, where large sums of money, expended in forming open drains in the swamp itself, would leave it but little improved.
In the laying out of drains the first point to be determined is the place of outfall, which should always afford a free and clear outlet to the drains, and must necessarily be at the lowest point of the land to be drained. The next point to be determined is the position of the minor drains; in the laying out of which the surface of each field must be regarded as being made up of one or more planes, as the case may be, for each of which the drains should be laid out separately. Level lines are to be set out a little below the upper edge of each of these planes, and the drains must then be made to cross these lines at right angles. By this means the drains will run in the line of the greatest slope, no matter how distorted the surface of the field may be. All the minor drains should be made to discharge into mains or submains, and not directly into an open ditch or water-course. As a general rule there should be a main to receive the waters of the minor drains from every 5 acres.
The advantages of drainage are obvious. In the first place it allows the soil to be brought into a more suitable condition for the growth of plants, aiding in producing the finely-divided and porous state by which the roots and rootlets can spread themselves at will in order to obtain the needed supplies of food, air, and moisture. It also allows the sun's rays to produce their full effect on the soil and plants without being robbed of great part of it by the stagnant water.
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The dram is a unit of the avoirdupois scale equivalent to 1.772 grams.
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Drama (from the Greek drew, I act), is a class of writings which almost entirely consist of dialogue, persons being represented as acting and speaking, and the pieces being usually intended to be acted on a stage by parties assuming the characters of the respective persons.
Its two great branches are tragedy and comedy, the former, roughly speaking, melancholy in character, the latter cheerful. The origin of the drama must be sought for in the love of imitation, and dramatic performances of some kind are to be met with probably among all nations.
Dramatic compositions are found in the Old Testament, for example in Job and the Song of Solomon; and ancient India and China both developed a dramatic literature of their own.
The European drama bad its origin in Greece. Both forms, tragic and comic, took their rise in the celebrations of the Greek festivals of Dionysus (Bacchus), at which hymns and chants were sung by choruses in honour of the god, and the chorus continued to be a prominent feature of the old Greek drama. Greek comedy commenced about 580-560 BC with Susarion, but it was long in attaining regular form. Of the old Greek comedy the chief representatives were Oratinus, Eupolis, Pherecrates, and Aristophanes - the last the greatest.
The invention of tragedy is generally ascribed to Thespis about 530 BC, who was followed by Phrynichus. But the true creator of tragedy was Aeschylus, in whose works and those of Sophocles and Euripides it found its most perfect expression. Thespis had only one actor, who from time to time relieved the chorus by declamation. Aeschylus changed this representation into real action by making use of two actors in addition to the chorus. Aeschylus also introduced masks; and by means of a long gown and the cothurnus, or buskin, the lofty stature of the heroes was imitated. A third actor was first introduced by Sophocles. The accommodations for the spectators were improved, and machinery and scenery introduced. The theatres, which had been formerly built of wood, were now large stone erections, capable of containing the greater number of the citizens. The regular drama among the Romans was borrowed from the Greeks. Plautus and Terence were imitators of the Greek comedy, Livius Andronicus (240 BC) of the Greek tragedy. Of the Roman tragedy, the dramas of Seneca are the only specimens extant.
In most modern European countries the regular drama took its rise in the mysteries, miracle-plays, and moralities of the middle ages. In Italy, however, it began with a reproduction in Latin of classical models. The earliest tragedy in Italian is Trissino's Sofonisba (1502). Regular comedies in Italian were written by Ariosto, Aretino, Macchiavelli, and others; and to the same period (15th and 16th centuries) belongs the Italian Pastoral Drama, which sprung from the ancient idylls, and aimed at a fanciful delineation of Arcadian and mythological scenes. Among the pastoral dramatists of this period are Poliziano, Tasso, and Guarini. The pastorals gave birth to the opera, early masters of which, so far as it may be included in the poetic drama, are Zenoand Metastasio. The Italian drama waned in the 17th century, but in the 18th genuine comedy and classic tragedy were restored, the former by Goldoni, the latter by Alfieri. Monti, Manzoni, and Niccolini are among the later writers of tragedy.
The other European nations cultivated the dramatic art much later than the Italians. The English and Spaniards devoted their attention to it almost at the game time; the former reaching their acme in William Shakespeare, the latter in Lope de Vega and Calderon. The history of the English theatre and the drama is naturally divided into two parts, the first of which begins with the reign of Elizabeth I and ends with the reign of Charles I. The rapid developmentof the drama during the reign of Elizabeth I was entirely unhampered by foreign influence. Lyly, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletchor, Chapman, Webster, Middleton, Marston, Ford,and Massinger are among the chief names connected with the brilliant period of the English drama.
During the Commonwealth the Puritans prohibited all kinds of plays, and the theatres were shut up for thirteen years. With Charles II the drama reappeared, and exhibited a licentiousness hardly equalled by that of any other Christian nation. Among the chief names belonging to this period are Dryden, Otway, Lee, Shadwell, Wycherley, and Etherege. From the close of the 17th to that of the 18th century British comedy was cultivated with much success by Cibber, Farquhar, Congreve, Sheridan, and others.
During the 19th century many writers have been conspicuous by their dramas. Among the chief of these may be noted Byron, Coleridge, Landor, Shelley, Maturin, Talfourd, Milman, Sir Henry Taylor, the first Lord Lytton, Knowles, R. H. Home, Arnold, Browning, Swinburne, and Tennyson. Among other 19th-century writers for the stage, who, however, may be called playwrights rather than dramatists, may be named, Douglas Jerrold, Tom Taylor, Charles Reade, Thomas Robertson, W. G. Wills, H. Byron, R. Buchanan, Dion Boucicault, W. S. Gilbert, J. M. Barrie, A. W. Pinero, H. A. Jones, etc.
The French drama was in a miserable state before Corncille (1606-84), who indeed is looked on as the founder of the drama in France. Racine, Moliere, Voltaire, and in later times Hugo, are some of the other distinguished French dramatists. Since about 1820 a new dramatic school has been formed in France, which, departing from the ancient strictness of what is called the classic, approaches more and more to the German or British, or what is called the romantic school. The establishment of this school formed part of the general reaction against the excessive adherence to classic models in literature, the leader in the movement being Victor Hugo. C. Delavigne marks the transition from the classical to the beginnings of the romantic school, and among the 19th century dramatists may be mentioned A. de Vigny, George Sand, A. de Musset, Merimee, Ponsard, Augier, Scribe, Dumas the Younger, and Sardou.
The German drama is of later birth than any thus far mentioned, and for a long time the Germans contented themselves with translations and adaptations from the French. Leasing was the first who, by word and deed, broke the French sway (1755), and he was succeeded by Schiller and Goethe, who rank as the greatest of the more modern dramatists. Prominent names in the German drama are Kotzebue, Korner, Schlegel, Tieck, Brentano, Grillparzer, Hebbel, Ludwig, Gutzkow, Freytag, Laube, Von Moser, etc.
The Dutch drama begins with the classical tragedies of Koster in the beginning of the 17th century, and reached its highest in Vondel (1587-1659). Holberg, Heiberg, Oehlenschlager, Ibsen, and Bjornson are the chief names connected with the Scandinavian drama.
The advent of moving pictures during the 20th century revolutionised drama, and introduced film or movies to the audience, with the USA quickly developing a reputation for film making based in Hollywood, and by the end of the 20th century the Indian city of Mumbai had become a leading center of Hindi language film making producing more films than even Hollywood.
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In Theatre, a Dramaturg is a person who serves as an editor for a theatre company, helping to select plays and helping writers refine their work. He or she is sometimes called a literary manager.
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A Drashig is an imaginary monster that appears in the BBC television series Dr Who story 'The Carnival of Monsters'. The Drashigs were large, worm-like, simple minded carnivores with an unrelenting determination to pursue their prey once detected. The name 'Drashig' was formed from an anagram of 'dishrag'.
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A draw-knife is a carpenter's tool consisting of a usually curved blade with a handle at each end at right angles to it. In use the draw-knife is drawn towards the user to remove wood from a surface, similar to a plane but more controllable. Draw-knives were anciently used for roughly rounding timber prior to turning on a lathe, and are still used by craftsmen around the world.
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Drawing is the art of representing upon a flat surface the forms of objects, and their positions and relations to each other. The idea of nearness or distance is given by the aid of perspective, foreshortening, and gradation. The term drawing, in its strict sense, is only applicable to the representing of the forms of objects in outline, with the shading necessary to develop roundness or modelling. In art, however, the term has a wider significance. Highly-finished painting's in water-colour are called drawings, as are also sketches or studies in oils.
Drawing, in its restricted sense, may be divided into these kinds: (1) pen drawing; (2) chalk drawing, which may include lead-pencil drawing; (3) crayon drawing; (4) drawing shaded with the brush or hair-pencil; (5) architectural or mechanical drawing (technical drawing).
Pen drawings are often confined to pure outlines; an appearance of relief or projection being given by thickening or doubling the lines on the shadow side. Finished pen drawings have all the shading produced by combinations of lines. Chalk drawings (including lead-pencil drawings) are most suited for beginners, as errors can be easily corrected. Black, red, and white chalks are used. When the chalk is powdered and rubbed in with a stump, large masses and broad effects can be produced with much rapidity. A combination of hatching and stumping is generally preferable to adhering exclusively to either mode. Crayon drawings are those in which the true colours of the objects represented are more or less completely wrought out with different coloured crayons. Drawings shaded with the brush are outlined with the pencil or pen, the shading being laid on or washed in with the brush in tints of Indian ink, sepia, or colour. Architectural and mechanical drawings are those in which the proportions of a building, machine, etc, are accurately set out for the guidance of the constructor: objects are in general delineated by geometric or orthographic projection.
The great schools of painting differ from one another as much in their drawing as in their painting. In Italy the Roman school, through Raphael's fine sense for the beautiful and expressive in form, and through his study of the antique, became the true teacher of beautiful drawing. The Florentine school tried to surpass the Roman precisely in this particular, but it lost by exaggeration what it had gained by learning and a close study of anatomy. In the Lombard school a tender style of drawing is seen through harmonious colouring, and, in the Venetian school the drawing is often veiled in the richness of the colour. The Dutch school excels in a careful and minute style of naturalistic drawing, combined with great excellence in colouring. The French school in the time of Poussin was very accurate in its drawing; at a later period its style betrayed a great amount of mannerism. David introduced again a purer taste in drawing and a close study of the antique, and these are qualities which distinguish his school (the so-called classical school) from the romantic and eclectic schools of a later period. The drawing of the British school is naturalistic rather than academic. During the 19th century it improved greatly in accuracy and expressiveness.
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A dray is an ancient form of low cart in which the shafts are elongated to form rails along which a load may be rolled onto the rear of the cart's inclined bed.
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The Drayton and Sayres' Case was a fugitive slave case that occurred in America in 1848. It resulted from Captain Drayton, of the schooner Pearl, carrying seventy-five escaped negroes up the Potomac on his vessel. An armed steamer captured the vessel and brought those on board back. The captain and another of the vessel's officers were put in prison, where they remained until 1852, when they were released through the instrumentality of Charles Sumner.
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Dreams are trains of ideas which present themselves to the mind during sleep. The principal fixture of the state of dreaming is the alleged absence of voluntary control over the current of thought, so that the principle of suggestion has unlimited sway - however, it is possible for some individuals to alter the train of thought and even voluntarily awake from an unpleasant dream. There is usually an utter want of coherency in the images that appear before the mental eye, but this want excites no surprise in the dreamer.
Occasionally, however, intellectual efforts are made during sleep which would be difficult to surpass in the waking state. It is said that Condillac often brought to a conclusion in his dreams reasonings on which he had been employed during the day; and that Franklin believed that he had been often instructed in his dreams concerning the issue of events which at that time occupied his mind. Coleridge composed from 200 to 300 lines during a dream: the beautiful fragment of Kubia Khan, which was all he got committed to paper when he awoke, remains a specimen of that dream-poem.
Dreams are subjective phenomena dependent on natural causes. They generally take their rise and character from external bodily impressions, or from something in the preceding state of body or mind. They are, therefore, retrospective and resultant instead of being prospective or prophetic. The latter opinion has, however, prevailed in all ages and among all nations; and hence the common practice of divination or prophesying by dreams, that is, interpreting them as presages of coming events. Some earlier authorities declared that all our dreams take place when we are in process of going to sleep or becoming awake, and that during deep sleep the mind is totally inactive. This is denied by the majority of philosophers, and has subsequently been shown to be incorrect.
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The Dred Scott vs. Sanford case was a slave incident that occurred in America. In 1834 Dred Scott, a negro slave of Missouri, was taken by his master, who was a surgeon in the regular army, first into Illinois and then into Minnesota, a region from which slavery was expressly excluded by the celebrated Missouri Compromise of 1820. While in Minnesota Dred Scott was married with his master's consent, but on being brought back to Missouri in 1838, he and his wife and children were sold to another master.
Dred Scott brought action for trespass in a St Louis court, and a decision was made in his favour on the ground that, under the provisions of the Missouri Compromise, the negro was free. The Supreme Court of Missouri reversed this decision, and the case came before the Federal Circuit Court in 1854. The defendant slave-holder pleaded that Dred Scott was not a citizen entitled to sue and be sued in the US Courts. The court held the contrary, but the jury's verdict decided the plaintiff still a slave. The case came before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1857. Here the judgment of the Circuit Court was reversed, and the case dismissed on the ground that no negro, bond or free, could plead in the US Courts as a citizen. The court then, though denying its jurisdiction over the dispute, discussed the constitutional points. Dred Scott's status in Illinois was declared determined by his Missouri domicile. As regarded the Minnesota Territory the court declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and void, it being held that States alone could prohibit slavery from their boundaries. Chief Justice Taney read the opinion of a majority of the court, all slave-holders, declaring 'negroes so inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect'. Justices Curtis and McLean dissented. Dred Scott was afterwards freed by his master. The decision and case roused great excitement in the North.
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Dredging is a term applied to the operation of removing mud, silt, and other deposits from the bottom of harbours, canals, rivers, docks, etc. The most simple dredging apparatus is the spoon apparatus, which consists of a strong iron ring or hoop, properly formed for making an impression upon the soft matter at the bottom, so as to scoop it into a large bag attached to the ring and perforated with a number of small holes. The means for working it is a long handle, a suspending rope, and a crane or sweep-pole planted in a boat.
Much more effective was the steam dredging-machine that became common during the 19th century. It had a succession of strong iron buckets on an endless chain, which traversed on a frame whose lower end was vertically adjustable so as to regulate the depth at which it worked. It was worked by steam, and the buckets tore up the matter at the bottom, raised it, and discharge it into punts or hoppers close to the dredging vessel. Various forms of steam - pump dredgers, in which suction-pipes were the chief features, were also used.
The river Clyde, from being a shallow stream, was converted, mainly by dredging, into a waterway carrying large vessels up to Glasgow.
Dredging rivers for gold has been largely carried on since the 19th century; and the gold-dredge may even be floated in water artificially supplied.
Dredging is also the operation of dragging the bottom of the sea for molluscs, plants, and other objects, it may be for scientific observation. The oyster-dredge is a light iron frame with a scraper like a narrow hoe on one side, and a bag attached to receive the oysters. The dredges used by naturalists are mostly modifications of or somewhat similar to the oyster-dredge. Scientific dredging assumed a high importance at the end of the 19th century for research into the life of deep-sea areas, before the invention of deep-sea diving equipment and cameras.
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A dreidel is a four-sided top with each side decorated with one of the four Hebrew letters nun, gimel, he or shin. Dreidels are traditionally used to play a children's game on the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
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Dresden China is a popular term for a delicate, semi-transparent, highly-finished porcelain made around the Dresden area of Germany. The term is variously used, being applied to porcelain made at Meissen, Sitzendorf and Volkstedt. The chief characteristics of 'Dresden China' is the elaborate designs and delicate colouring. Thus frequently Dresden china is found in the form of exquisite porcelain figurines.
The manufacture resulted from an accidental discovery made by Bottger, a young chemist, in 1710, and the vases, statuettes, groups of figures, candelabra, clocks, etc, manufactured during the 18th century are highly prized. They are more remarkable for excellence of execution than for purity of design.
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A dress-guard was a wing on the side of a carriage entrance to prevent the brushing of a lady's dress against the wheel as she got in or out of the carriage.
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In mining, drift is the course or direction of a tunnel or gallery; or a passage between
two mine shafts.
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Drift sand is sand thrown up by the waves of the sea, and blown when dry some distance inland until arrested by obstacles, round which it gradually accumulates until the heaps attain considerable dimensions, often forming dunes or sand-hills.
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In agriculture. Drilling is the plan of sowing seeds in parallel rows as distinguished from sowing them broadcast. The drilling method of sowing was introduced into England by Jethro Tull, who published a work on the subject in 1731. The crops which are now generally drilled are turnips, potatoes, beans, pease, carrots, clover, cereals, flax, etc. The first form of drill was of very simple construction, and was only adapted for sowing one row at a time, but now a great variety of improved implements are in use. Among the principal advantages of drilling over broadcast sowing we may mention that a considerable saving of seed is effected in the sowing of grain crops, but the great advantage is that in the case of green crops it enables the farmer more readily to clean the land both by the hand and by mechanised hoes. To keep the soil stirred and pulverized, which can only be properly done when the crops have been drilled, favours the retention and absorption of the moisture.
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Droit d'Aubame was an old rule in some European countries, by which the property of a deceased foreigner was claimed by the state, unless the defunct had a special exemption. In France, where it was not abolished until 1819, the Scotch, Savoyards, Swiss, and Portuguese were exempted.
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A droshky or drosky is a Russian, light carriage on four wheels and without a covering. The first droshkies were formed of a board placed across two pairs of wheels, enabling the passengers to sit sideways like in an Irish jaunting car. At the start of the 20th century, droshkies were used as taxis in Russia and in Germany.
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Drowning means death by the air being prevented entering the lungs owing to the month and nostrils being immersed in a liquid, the liquid being commonly water. Death may, therefore, occur by drowning in a small quantity of water. Thus a child may fall head downwards into a tub and be drowned, though the tub is not half full of water, sufficient to cover the mouth and nostrils being all that is necessary, and an adult overcome by a fit or by drunkenness may fall on a road with their head in a ditch or pool of water, and drown. Death is thus due to suffocation, to the stoppage of breathing, and to the entrance of water into the lungs. When death has been caused by drowning, the skin presents the appearance called goose-skin (cutis anserina), the face and surface of the body generally are usually pale, a frothy liquid is found in the lungs and air-passages, and about the lips and nostrils; water may be found in the stomach, and clenched fingers, holding substances grasped at, may serve to show that a struggle has taken place in the water, and that the body was alive at the time of immersion.
Drowning was formerly a mode of capital punishment in Europe. The last person executed by drowning in Scotland was executed in 1685. In Ireland there was an execution by drowning so lately as 1777.
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Drugget is a woollen fabric or felt, the heavier kinds of which were used as a border for carpet squares, for covering carpets and sometimes in place of carpet. The name was also used to describe a coarse woollen fabric formerly used in some parts of Britain for women's dresses.
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A drumlin is an irregular, rounded, hog-backed mound of boulder clay, often from a hundred to two hundred feet high and hundreds of yards long. They are abundant in most flat countries over which an ice sheet has passed.
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Drunk as a Lord is an old British saying, meaning very intoxicated. The phrase originates from the early nineteenth century, before the temperance movement took hold, when those that could afford to, e.g. Lords, would typically consume three or more bottles of port wine at dinner, with the result that most dinners ended with the guests under the table in a state of total inebriation.
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A drunkard's cloak was a tub with holes for the arms to pass through, formerly used as a punishment for scolds and drunkards.
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In Scottish history, the drunken parliament is a name given to the privy-council who, under their powers as representing the estates between sessions, met at Glasgow and passed an act on the 1st of October 1662 to remove the recusant ministers from their parishes within a month. All the members were said to have been drunk except Lockhart of Lee, who opposed the measure.
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Drunkenness is the state of being drunk or overpowered by alcoholic liquor, or the habit of indulging in intoxication. A similar condition may be produced by numerous agents, but the term is always applied to the act or habit of drinking alcoholics to excess. Formerly, at the start of the 20th century, by the law of Britain drunkenness was an offence against the public economy, and those found drunk were liable to be fined or imprisonment. Drunkenness is no excuse for any crime, but it renders a contract invalid if either of the parties was in a state of complete drunkenness when the contract was signed.
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The Drury Lane Theatre is an historic English theatre in London's West End. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal, opened in 1663. As theatres often did in those days, it burned down nine years later, but was rebuilt again in 1874. From 1746 to 1776, Garrick was the resident star and co- manager. Richard Brinsley Sheridan succeeded Garrick as manager, and several of his plays were produced there. The theatre burned down again in 1809, was rebuilt in 1812. During the 1800s it was occasionally home to famous stars like Edmund Kean and George MacReady. In the latter 1800s it was associated with spectacular melodramas and stage machinery. Since the 1920s it has featured big, Broadway-style musicals.
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A dry shave is a shave without first soaping the face.
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A dry-point is a sharp-pointed instrument used by engravers to incise fine lines in copper without the plate being covered with etching-ground or the lines bit in by acid. This tool was much employed in working the more delicate portions of plates produced as etchings.
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In grammar, dual is that number which is used, in some languages, to designate two things, whilst another number (the plural) exists to express many. The Greek, Sanskrit, and Gothic of ancient languages, and the Lithuanian and Arabic of modern, possess forms of the verb and noun in which two persons or things are denoted, called the dual numbers.
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Dualism is the philosophical exposition of the nature of things by the hypothesis of two dissimilar primitive principles not derived from each other. Dualism in religion is chiefly confined to the adoption of a belief in two fundamental beings, a good and an evil one, as is done in some oriental religions, especially that of Zoroaster.
In metaphysics, dualism is the doctrine of those who maintain the existence of spirit and matter as distinct substances, in opposition to idealism, which maintains we have no knowledge or assurance of the existence of anything but our own ideas or sensations. Dualism may correspond with realism in maintaining that our ideas of things are true transcripts of the originals, or rather of the qualities inherent in them, the spirit acting as a mirror and reflecting their true images; or it may hold that, although produced by outward objects, we have no assurance that in reality these at all correspond to our ideas of them, or even that they produce the same idea in two different minds.
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The Dubuque Visitor was the first of the early news publications in Iowa. It was established at Dubuque Lead Mines, Wisconsin Territory (now Dubuque, Iowa), in May, 1836, by John King. It was later published as the Dubuque Herald.
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The ducking stool was in which shrewish offenders were bound and plunged in water as a punishment and torture. They were of different forms, but that most commonly in use consisted of an upright post and a transverse movable beam on which the seat was fitted or from which it was suspended by a chain. The penalty was inflicted on scolds of both sexes, quarrelsome married couples being immersed tied back-to-back. Ducking stools were extensively used throughout Britain from the 15th until the beginning of the 18th century, the last recorded use of the ducking stool in England was in 1809 at Leominster.
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Dudgeon is the timber from the root of the box-tree. It was at one time used for making the handles of small daggers, which were then known as dudgeons.
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A duel (from the Latin duellum) is a single combat following on a challenge, for the purpose of deciding some private difference or quarrel, and conducted according to the regulations of the code of honour. The combat generally takes place in the presence of witnesses called seconds, who make arrangements as to the mode of fighting, place the weapons in the hands of the combatants, and see that the laws they have laid down are carried out. The origin of the practice may probably be traced to the judicial combats of the northern tribes who overthrew the Roman power. Possessing no well-defined system of jurisprudence, they refereed the settlement of all disputes to an appeal to arms, invoking the deity to defend the right.
Duelling took hold early in France, and it is calculated that 6000 persons fell in duels during ten years of the reign of Henry IV. His minister, Sully, remonstrated against the practice; but the king connived at it, supposing that it tended to maintain a military spirit among his people. In 1602, however, he issued a decree against it, and declared it to be punishable with death. Many subsequent prohibitions were issued, but they were all powerless to stop the practice. During the minority of Louis XIV. more than 4000 nobles are said to have lost their lives in duels.
Duelling with small swords was introduced into England in 1587 from France. The first recorded English duel took place in 1096 between William count of Eu and Godfrey Baynard. Duelling has always been illegal in England, with the issue of a challenge seen as a breach of the peace and the killing of an opponent as murder or manslaughter, with the charge raised against the survivor and the seconds. Notable duels include: Between the duke of Hamilton and lord Mohun which was fought with small swords in Hyde Park on the 15th of November 1712. Lord Mohun was killed on the spot and the duke died of his wounds as he was being carried to his coach. On the 8th of June 1807 a Mr Alcock killed a Mr Colcough and went mad as a result. On the 21st of March 1829 the Duke of Wellington and the earl of Winchelsea duelled with no injury, indeed the duel was a farce with both parties firing into the air.
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A duffle bag is a sturdy, cylindrical canvas bag originally used by servicemen for carrying kit. Stout cord is threaded through metal, eyelets and drawn together to seal the top. The duffle bag shape has been used in shoulder bags, made of various fabrics, from the 1970s.
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The Duke of Exeter's Daughter was a rack in the Tower of London, so called after its inventor, a minister of Henry VI.
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Duke's Laws were a code of American laws drawn up in 1664 by Colonel Nicolls, then governing the colonies of the Duke of York's patent. They were first arranged for the government of the Dutch settlers of Long Island. They prohibited the election of magistrates, but provided for trial by jury, equal taxation, tenure of lands from the Duke of York, freedom of religion, liability to military duty, and recognition of negro slavery under certain restrictions.
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The Duma was the lower House of the Russian Imperial Parliament. It was created in 1905 by the Constitution granted by Tsar Nicholas II, and replaced in 1917 by the Soviet system.
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The Dunblane massacre occurred on the 13th of March 1996 when Thomas Hamilton, a former Scout leader with a grudge against the scout movement, walked into a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, armed with four handguns and shot down a class of five and six-year old children before shooting himself. A result of the killings was a ban on private ownership of hand guns above .22 calibre in the United Kingdom. Critics of the ban pointed out that almost all gun crime is carried out with widely available illegal weapons, and instances of a licensed firearm being used by its owner to carry out a crime are almost non-existent in the UK.
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A dune is a wavelike mound or ridge the materials of which have been accumulated and shaped by the wind. Dunes may occur where ever sand is formed; by the margins of seas lakes and rivers, in inland regions of low rainfall, which are the most extensive dune-covered areas.
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Dunes are low hills of sand accumulated on the sea-coasts of Holland, Britain, Spain, and other countries, in some places encroaching on and covering what once was cultivated land, but in others serving as a natural barrier to protect the country from the destructive encroachments of the sea.
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A dungeon is an underground prison, originally in the keep of a Norman castle.
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Duodecimo is a measure of paper in which each leaf forms a twelfth part of the sheet.
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In law, duress is the unlawful constraint or compulsion of a person by physical action or threats.
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Dutch Mordant is an acid used in etching for dissolving parts of the plate. Dutch Mordant comprises a solution of hydrochloric acid and potassium chlorate providing a clean and regular action which is preferred for fine, close work such as aquatint and soft-ground etching.
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Dutch Pink is a bright yellow colour formerly used in distemper, for staining paper-hangings, and for other ordinary purposes. It is composed of chalk or whiting coloured with a decoction of birch leaves, French berries, and alum.
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The Dutch West India Company or Chartered West India Company (Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie) was a company chartered by the States-General of the United Netherlands in 1621, at the instance of Willem Usselinx. It was given a monopoly of trade with America for twenty-four years, with the right to colonize and to make wars and alliances. It colonized and governed New Netherlands (until 1664) and also certain West India islands and a part of Brazil. It was rechartered for twenty-five years in 1647. Its preoccupation with military efforts in Brazil prevented its doing much for New Netherlands.
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Dyeing is the art of giving colour to textile and other articles in such a way that the colours are more or less permanent, and not readily affected by the action of light, washing, etc. Like spinning and weaving it was originally a home industry, as it still is in many places. Until about 1850 natural dye-stuffs alone were employed, but the discovery of dyes of all colours that can be obtained from coal-tar products revolutionized dyeing as an industry, and the vegetable dye-stuffs were gradually superseded by the newer colours.
Before dyeing, the materials have generally to be cleansed or bleached to get rid of undesirable colouring matters or impurities; and frequently a textile material is subjected to some subsidiary treatment in order to obtain special effects. For example, cotton yarn may be subjected to the action of strong caustic soda ('mercerizing' process) while in a state of great tension, in order to give it a permanent silky lustre.
Dyeing is not only an art, it is also a branch of applied chemistry. One fundamental principle is, that the colouring matter and other necessary substances must be applied in a state of solution, and while in direct contact with the fibre they must be rendered insoluble, so that they are precipitated within or upon the fibre and thus permanently fixed. The method of effecting this varies greatly according to the fibre and the colouring matter employed. As a rule the vegetable and the animal fibres are dyed by very different methods. The affinity of the animal fibres for certain colouring matters is often so great that they are readily dyed by simple immersion in hot colour solutions;
but this simple process is not generally sufficient. According to the method of their application in dyeing the following groups: of dye-stuffs may be distinguished: Avid Colours, Basic Colours, Direct Colours, Developed Colours, Mordant Colours, Miscellaneous Colours, Reactive Colours.
The acid colours are so called because they are of an acid character and are applied in an acid dye-bath. As a rule, they are only suitable for dyeing the animal fibres, e.g. wool and silk, also leather, horn, feathers, etc. Only a few vegetable dye-stuffs belong to this class, for example, the purple colour orchil and the blue colour indigo extract. On the other hand, the acid colours derived from coal-tar - and increasingly petroleum - are very numerous and yield a great variety of hues - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black, each with its particular name.
The basic colours are so called because their essential constituents, to which they owe their dyeing power, are organic bases. The bases themselves are colourless and too insoluble in water to be of use, hence they are employed in the form of their soluble coloured salts, usually the hydrochlorides of the colour-bases. Their solutions are precipitated by tannic acid, because it combines with the colour-bases to form insoluble tannates. Wool, silk, and animal substances generally have a direct attraction for colour-bases, and hence these fibres are readily dyed by simple immersion in hot aqueous solutions of the basic colours. Cotton and linen, on the other hand, are not dyed so readily; they need first to be prepared or impregnated with tannic acid, and thus prepared are said to be mordanted, the tannic acid in this connection being styled the mordant. Most of the colours of this class are fugitive to light, and all but one, barberry root, are derived from coal-tar products.
The direct colours are so called because they dye cotton direct, that is, without the aid of any mordanting process. The first of this class derived from coal-tar was congo red, discovered in 1884; this group includes a very great variety of fast colours, and forms, indeed, one of the most important and valuable series of dye-stuffs employed. Cotton, linen, and the vegetable fibres generally are dyed in the simplest possible manner by merely boiling them in a solution of the dye-stuff, with or without the addition of a little soap, carbonate or sulphate of soda, etc. Wool and silk are frequently dyed in the same manner as cotton. Very few vegetable dye-stuffs belong to the direct colours, e.g. Safflower, Turmeric, Saffron, Annatto. They are all fugitive, and have been of little or no importance to the dyer since the end of the 19th century. The coal-tar colours of this class, on the other hand, are extremely numerous.
The developed colours include a variety of colours which are formed in situ upon the fibre by the successive application of two or more substances. These colours are all of coal-tar origin. A number of them belong to the so-called azo colours, derived from compounds containing nitrogen.
The mordant colours form one of the most important classes of colouring matters, for they include not only most of the vegetable dye-stuffs, e.g. madder, logwood, fustic, etc, but also many valuable fast coal-tar colours, commonly known as the alizarin colours, after their typical representative, alizarin. These mordant colours have by themselves very little colouring power, as a rule, and if employed alone in dyeing give little or no result. If applied, however, in conjunction with metallic salts, notably those of chromium, aluminium, iron, tin, and copper, they each yield a variety of colours, according to the metallic salt employed. In employing them usually two distinct operations are involved: first, that of applying the metallic salt or mordant, called the mordanting process ; and second, that of dyeing proper, in which the mordanted material is boiled in a solution or decoction of the dye-stuff. During the dyeing operation the colouring principle of the dye-stuff combines with the metallic salt already upon the material, and the colour is thus produced and fixed upon the fibre. The method of mordanting varies with the fibre and the metallic salt employed. The vegetable dye-stuffs of this class include Madder, Sapanwood, Camwood, Barwood, Old Fustic, Young Fustic, Quercitron Bark, Persian Berries, Weld, Logwood. Madder was formerly the most important and highly valued of the dye-stuffs of this class, being especially employed to produce the fine 'Turkey-red' dye; but was entirely superseded by the coal-tar colour alizarin towards the end of the 19th century.
Reactive colours combine directly with the fibre being dyed through a chemical reaction and result in a fast colour. The first ranges of reactive dyes for cellulose fibres were introduced in the mid-1950s.
Similarly, the employment of cochineal (an insect dye) has also greatly diminished through the introduction of the cheaper colours. Camwood and barwood are almost entirely used in wool-dyeing, either in conjunction with the indigo-vat or for the purpose of dyeing various shades of brown. Old fustic is the most important of the yellow mordant dye-stuffs, and the colours are fast although not very brilliant. Young fustic yields fugitive colours, and has been little used since 1900. Quercitron bark is an excellent dye-stuff employed by wool-dyers for the production of bright orange and yellow colours. Persian berries and weld, a species of wild mignonette, are both excellent dye-stuffs, but their employment is now limited. Logwood is largely employed by wool, silk, and cotton dyers for dyeing black and dark-blues, which, although fast to washing, are only moderately so towards light. During the 20th century dyewoods were gradually replaced by coal-tar colours.
Among miscellaneous colours are several dye-stuffs applied in a distinct manner. Indigo is a dark-blue powder quite insoluble in water, but can be rendered soluble for dyeing purposes by two methods. The first method converts the indigo into so-called indigo extract, which is sold as a blue paste and applied as an acid colour in dyeing wool and silk. In the second method the indigo-blue is converted into indigo-white, which readily dissolves in the alkali present, the solution thus obtained being called an indigo-vat. If cotton, wool, or silk is steeped for some time in the clear yellow solution of such a vat, and then exposed to the oxidizing influence of the air, they are dyed a permanent blue. The indigo-white absorbed by the fibre loses its acquired hydrogen, and thus insoluble indigo-blue is regenerated within and upon the fibre. Aniline black is a valuable colour, produced direct upon the fibre by the oxidation of aniline, and remarkable for its extreme permanency.
Catechu is a vegetable dye-stuff used in dyeing cotton and woollen brown. On wool, catechu yields khaki browns in single bath by using copper sulphate as the mordant. On silk it is largely employed for weighting purposes in the process of dyeing black. Chrome Yellow, Iron Buff, Prussian Blue, and Manganese Brown, employed in cotton dyeing, are frequently classed as mineral colours. Chrome yellow is obtained by immersing cotton successively in solutions of acetate of lead and bichromate of potash, whereby the yellow precipitate of chromate of lead is fixed upon the fibre. Iron buff is obtained in a similar manner by the successive application of iron sulphate and carbonate of soda, and finally developing the full colour by washing with water and exposure to air. The buff colour is really due to the precipitation of oxide of iron on the cotton. Prussian blue is at once developed by passing the buff-dyed cotton through an acidified solution of potassium ferrocyanide. The production of manganese brown on cotton is similar to that of iron buff. The brown colour ultimately produced upon the fibre is an oxide of manganese. The mineral colours are very useful for certain purposes, and are to be regarded as very fast to light.
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A dyke (dike) is a ditch or trench, and also an embankment, rampart, or wall. It is specially applied to an embankment raised to oppose the incursions of the sea or of a river, the dikes of Holland being notable examples of work of this kind. These are often raised 12 metres above the high-water mark, and are wide enough at the top for a common roadway or canal, sometimes for both.
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Dynamite Saturday is January the 24th, so named after January the 24th 1885 when terrorist attacks upon the Houses of Parliament and Tower of London using dynamite caused great damage to the buildings. Attacks upon the Law-Courts and some other public buildings were prevented by them being well guarded.
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Dynasty was an American soap opera television series following the lives of a wealthy Denver family - the 'Carringtons' in the oil business. Dynasty was created by Esther Shapiro and Richard Shapiro and first ran from 1981 to 1989.
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