Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1899 — A Curious Word Survival. [ARTICLE]

A Curious Word Survival.

An instance of the survival of old words in country districts came under notice at Beaconsfield this week. In a tender to the urban council for public lighting the contractor quoted terms for “lighting and douting” the lamps. The word “dout” is regarded by etymologists as obsolete, although it was in olden times used in the sense to quench, being a contraction of “do out” in the same way that “doff” and “don” are contractions of “do off ’ and “do on.” The word is used in Shakspeare (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene iv.): One drain of base Doth all the noble substance dout. The word is still in common use in the villages of Buckinghamshire among the laboring classes, but it is rather unusual to find it used in connection with a business transaction of a public body—London News.