durst

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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], 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[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Waterson;  […], published 1634, →OCLC, Act I, scene iii, page 2:

     That thou durst, Arcite!

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →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

• durstn't/dursn't/dursen't

Anagrams

• turds

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English trussen, from Old French trousser.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /duːst/

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