D

DACTYLIC :  adj  having to do with fingers. Compare CONTRECTATION, EUTRIPSIA, HAPTIC

Knott was also addicted to solitary dactylic ejaculations of extraordinary vigour, accompanied by spasms of the members.

--Beckett, Watt, p. 209.

DAGSWAIN :  noun  a coarse bedspread of rough material. See PATIBULARY

DAVEN, DAVVEN :  verb  from Hebrew, to sway to and fro rapidly while praying.

Then, sober again, he davvens his own introduction.

--Elkin, George Mills, p. 67.

The sun began to rise. Marshall found himself swaying back and forth, davening, moved by waves of energy which swept past the dawn in a great crackling storm.

--Helprin, Refiner's Fire, p. 295.

DEFENESTRATE :  verb  "to toss out of a window, as in the Defenestration of Prague, May 23, 1618, when Bohemian rebels tossed the imperial regents out a window, precipitating the Thirty Years War" (Koster). Compare antonym ADFENESTRATE

"Anybody who continues to live in a subculture so demonstrably sick has no right to call himself well. The only well thing to do is what I am going to do now, mainly, jump out this window."
So speaking Winsome straightened his tie and prepared to defenestrate.

--Pynchon, V., p. 361.

DEHISCENCE :  noun  a gaping open. Compare DISSILIENT, ERUMPENT, GURN, IRRUMPENT, RINGENT

. . . their advance was at once rapid and sullen, for Una had become aware of an uncontrollable and ill-placed dehiscence in the stuff of her gossamer.

--Beckett, "What a Misfortune,"
More Pricks than Kicks, p. 139.

DELPHINET :  noun  young dolphin

. . . --you cannot demand pudicity† on the part of a delphinet!

--Nabokov, Ada, p. 416.

DELTA :  noun  the Greek letter "D"; "the dark triangle" -- pudendum or cunt. Compare COUN, COUNTRY MATTERS, COYNTE, ESCUTCHEON, FOTZEPOLITIK, FURBELOW, MERKIN, QUIM, QUIMTESSENCE

I can think of another portion of your anatomy that would have summed you up a damned sight better. They called it delta in Ancient Greek.

--Fowles, Mantissa, p. 150.

DIABOLIFUGE :  noun  something that drives off the devil (a coinage of Oliver Wendell Holmes). Compare ABREACTION, APOTROPAIC

I wished that I could administer a diabolifuge as easily as a vermifuge† for the expulsion of worms.

--Lloyd-Jones, Lord of the Dance, p. 56.

DICLESIUM :  noun  a dried fruit. See PATIBULARY

DIGLOT :  noun  one with two tongues or two languages, a bilingual.

"Marry! Le Blonde and his men are here, asking the village to divvy its piscaries† among diglots holus-bolus.†

--Helprin, Winter's Tale, p. 424.

DISSILIENT :  adj  literally, "leaping apart"; bursting open or out. Compare DEHISCENCE, ERUMPENT, GURN, IRRUMPENT, RINGENT

It was written in a stiff, old-mannish hand, and signed, with a sudden dissilient fluorishm Michael Nugent.

--Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts, p. 26.

DIVAGATE :  verb  to wander about, to take a sidetrip. DIVAGATION, noun. Compare NOCTIVAGANT

The railway--a double track but of narrow gauge-- now divagated away from the grove, for no apparent reason, then wandered back again parallel to it.

--Lowry, Under the Volcano, p. 115.

You might tuck in a little Proustian divagation here. . . .

--DeVries, Consenting Adults, p. 100.

DODDIPOL :  noun  a hornless cow; hence, a fool. Compare BOANTHROP, JOBBERNOWL, NUPSON. See LOOBY.

DRUGGEL, DRUGGLE :  noun  a dull, fat coward. Compare FERBLET, GORP, MEACOCK, NESH

. . . I might add that you are a slabberdegullion† druggel, a doddipol† jolthead, a blockish grutnol, † and a turdgut.

--Burgess, The End of the World News, p. 59.

DRYAD :  noun  a wood nymph. See NAIAD. Compare ARTEMID, MAELID, OREAD

DUPRASS :  noun  See quotation. Compare GRANFALLOON

They were love birds. . . .They were, I think, a flawless example of what Bokonon calls a duprass, which is a karass† composed of only two persons.

--Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, p. 78.

DYSCRASE :  adj  to put the body in a bad state. DYSCRASIA, noun. Compare ANORECTIC, CACHECTIC, INANITION, MARASMIC, MARCESCENCE, TABESCENT

. . . to disgrace is to dyscrase.

--Theroux, Three Wogs, p. 97.

Straining, my fingers trembling with alcoholic dyscrasia, monkeys shrieking and war drums thumping in my head, I managed to make contact with and knock over the glass, and I lay there gasping like some sea creature carried in with the tide and left to the merciless sun and the sharp probing beaks of the gulls.

--Boyle, Budding Prospects, pp. 160-161.