durst

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See also: Durst

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /dɝst/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)st

Verb

durst

  1. (archaic, literary) simple past of dare
    • Traditional rhyme
      Four and twenty tailors went to kill a snail; the best man among them durst not touch her tail.
    • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , lines 82-83:
      Pretty soul! She durst not lie / Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
    • 1613–1614 (date written), John Fletcher, William Shak[e]speare, The Two Noble Kinsmen: , London: Tho Cotes, for Iohn Waterson;  , published 1634, →OCLC, Act I, scene iii, page 2:
      That thou durst, Arcite!
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC, line 49:
      Who durst defy th' omnipotent to arms.
    • 1830, The Book of Mormon:
      And they durst not steal, for fear of the law, for such were punished; neither durst they rob, nor murder, for he that murdered was punished unto death.
    • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “6, Monk Samson”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):
      Coming home, therefore, I sat me down secretly under the Shrine of St. Edmund, fearing lest our Lord Abbot should seize and imprison me, though I had done no mischief; nor was there a monk who durst speak to me, nor a laic who durst bring me food except by stealth.
    • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:
      Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey were talking together on the quarter-deck, and, anxious as I was to tell them my story, I durst not interrupt them openly.
    • 1896, A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, XXX, lines 1-2:
      Others, I am not the first,
      Have willed more mischief than they durst

Derived terms

Anagrams

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English trussen, from Old French trousser.

Pronunciation

Verb

durst

  1. crossed
    • 1927, “ZONG OF TWI MAARKEET MOANS”, in THE ANCIENT DIALECT OF THE BARONIES OF FORTH AND BARGY, COUNTY WEXFORD, page 129, line 10:
      Van a vierd durst a bargher an a haar galshied too,
      When a weasel crossed the road, and a hare gazed at me too,

References

  • Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 129
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