Dang: euphemism for damn, e.g., dang it all or dang you.
Dash: euphemism for damn, e.g., dash it all.
Dashing: showy, elegant or spirited, especially in dress.
Dead meat: a corpse, from 1860 on.
Death on: very fond of or very talented at.
- 1847: A long, lanky, cadaverous lawyer, who was death on a speech, powerful in chewing tobacco, and some at a whisky drinking. Robb, Streaks of Squatter Life, p.30
Declare, do: alternative to "do swear"; e.g., Well, I do declare!
Deef: deaf
- 1896: You're a-goin' to do what? I reckon I'm a-goin' a little deef. Ella Higgimon, Tales from Puget Sound, p.68
Designs: plans; schemes; intentions. Commonly used throughout.
- 1846: I like gentlemen's society when I know they have no designs upon my heart and when I know any cordiality of mine will not be misinterpreted. Mary Butterfield, letter to fiance, October 31
Didoes: to "cut up didoes" was to get into mischief.
- 1835: Must all the world know all the didoes we cut up in the lodgeroom? D.P. Thompson, Adventures of Timothy Peacock, p. 170
- 1838: If you keep a cutting didoes, I must talk to you like a Dutch uncle. J.C. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, p.201
Diggings: one's home; lodgings; community.
- 1838: It's about time we should go to our diggings. J.C. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, p.119
- 1842: With whom did the idea originate? It's novel in these diggins at least. Philadelphia Spirit of the Times, May 6
- 1853: How dare you talk thus in these days, and above all in these diggings. Fun and Earnest, p.239
Dipping: chewing snuff.
- 1853: This horrible practice, called in lower Virginia and North Carolina dipping, is of respectable standing. Putnarn's Magazine, February, p.142
- 1857: She was suspected of a mysterious habit denominated in Southern parlance dipping-in other words, of chewing snuff. Thomas B. Gunn, New York Boarding Houses, p.221
Dirk: to stab with a dirk or dagger.
- 1825: He had changed his mind as to the dirking… [He] swore the fellow ought to be dirked, the usual phrase for the punishment of slight offences among these humane republicans. J.K. Paulding, John Bull in America, pp.39, 146
- 1830: The assassin determined to dirk him in the street on his return. Massachusetts Spy, June 2
Doggery: a cheap drinking establishment; in modern lingo, a dive.
- 1848: The drunkard, while reeling homeward from the doggery, is attracted by both sides of the street, which accounts for his diagonal movements. Dow, Patent Sermons, p.99
- 1850: A doggery is too contemptible for any man who has a soul more elevated than the swine to condescend to. Frontier Guardian, March 20
- 1854: And then the doggery-keepers got to sellin' licker by the drink, instead of the half-pint, and a dime a drink at that. J.G. Baldwin, Flush Times in Alabama, p.6
- 1855: Some say that this fellow-feeling between him and the marshal results from the fact that he was a doggery-keeper in the states. Weekly Oregonian, April 7
Doings: "fixins" for a meal.
- 1843: A snug breakfast of chicken fixins, eggs, ham-doins, and even slapjacks. R. Carlton, The New Purchase, p.58
- 1847: Flour doins an' chicken fixins, an' four uncommon fattest big goblers rosted I ever seed. Billy Warwick's Wedding, p.104
- 1859: Tell Sal to knock over a chicken or two, and get out some flour, and have some flour-doins and chicken fixins for the stranger. Knickerbocker Magazine, March
Done gone: a pleonasm (redundancy) used frequently by Negroes of the period.
- 1836: He had done gone three hours ago. "A Quarter Race in Kentucky", New York Spirit of the Times, p.22
Do tell: phrase used to express fascination with a speaker's subject.
- 1842: Among the peculiar expressions in use in Maine we noticed that, when a person has communicated some intelligence in which the hearer feels an interest, he manifests it by saying: "I want to know"; and when he has concluded his narrative, the hearer will reply: "0! Do tell " J.S. Buckingham, Eastern and Western States, p. 177
- 1853: Do tell! I want to know! Did you ever! Such a powerful right smart chance of learning as you have is enough to split your head open right smack. Daily Morning Herald, St. Louis, April 11
1853: At last sez I, "Jidge, did you ever have your portrait tuck?" "No," sez he, as ugly as you please. "Dew te," says I. Knickerbocker Magazine, September
Dram shop: a small drinking establishment, from early in century.
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