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DISMAL

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 313 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DISMAL , an See also:

adjective meaning dreary, gloomy, and so a name given to stretches of swampy See also:land on the See also:east See also:coast of the See also:United States, as the Dismal Swamp in See also:Virginia and See also:North Carolina. The derivation has been much discussed. In the See also:early examples of the use the word is a substantive, especially in the expression " in the dismal," i.e. in the dismal See also:time or days. Later it became adjectival, especially in See also:combination with " days." It has been connected with " decimal," med. Latin decimalis, belonging to a tithe or tenth, and thus the " dismal days " are the unpleasant days connected with the See also:extortion and oppression of exacting See also:payment of See also:tithes. According to the New See also:English See also:Dictionary, quoting See also:Professor W. W. See also:Skeat, " dismal " is derived, through an Anglo-Fr. dis mal, from the See also:Lat. See also:dies mali, evil or unpropitious days. This Anglo-See also:French expression, explained as See also:les mal jours, is found in a MS. of Rauf de Linham's See also:Art de Kalender, 1256. These days of evil See also:omen were known as Dies Aegyptiaci (Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v.) or See also:Egyptian days, either as having been instituted by Egyptian astrologers or with reference to the " ten plagues "; so See also:Chaucer, " I trowe See also:hit was in the dismal, That were the ten woundes of Egipte " (See also:Book of the Duchesse, 1206). There were two such days in each See also:month. See Skeat, Trans.

Philol. See also:

Soc. (1888), p. 2, and See also:note on the See also:line in the " Book of the Duchesse," The See also:Complete See also:Works of See also:Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. i. (1894).

End of Article: DISMAL

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