deuseaville
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]- deasyville, deausaville, deuceaville, deuse a vile, deuseavile, dewsavell, dewse-a-vile, dewse-a-vyle, deyseaville, duceavil, deusavil
Etymology
[edit]Possibly from daisy + -ville.
Noun
[edit]deuseaville
- (obsolete, British, thieves' cant) The countryside.
- 1707, “The Rum-Mort's Praise of Her Faithless Maunder”, in Farmer, John Stephen, editor, Musa Pedestris[1], published 1896, page 36:
- Duds and cheats thou oft hast won, / Yet the cuffin quire couldst shun; / And the deuseaville didst run, / Else the chates had thee undone.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:deuseaville.
Derived terms
[edit]References
[edit]- Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors (1889–1890) “deuseaville”, in A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant […], volume I (A–K), Edinburgh: […] The Ballantyne Press, →OCLC.
- John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1891) “deuseaville”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume II, [London: […] Harrison and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 271.
- 2017 October 5, Jonathon Green, The Stories of Slang: Language at its most human, Robinson, →ISBN:
- Still rural, but far back in time, is the mysterious and quite lost deuseaville, the countryside, the age of which is indicated by the variety of its speculative spellings – deasyville, deausaville, deuceaville, dewsavell, dewse-a-vile, dewse-a-vyle, deyseaville, duceavil, deusavil – and the problem of finding out just where it came from. Eric Partridge suggests a corruption of daisy-ville but dewse = deuce = the devil and thus a generic negative; given that London, the big city, is Rum ville, literally 'good town' [...] might not the country, its opposite, be 'bad town'?