Definitions For Druxy

Adjective

(of wood, obsolete, outside, dialects) Having decayed spots or streaks of a whitish colour; rotten, decayed. : (Weale)

Alternative forms

druxey

Etymology

From {{af, en, drix, t1=rotten part of wood, -y}} (the forms drixy, droxy and drucksy occur in various dialects), of unclear origin.{{R:EDD, droxy}}{{R:OED, drix}} The adjective is attested since at least the 1580s, in The Arte of English Poesie.The Arte of English Poesie, ascribed to GEorge Puttenham (1584-1589), edition by Edward Arber, page 252: "we liken {{...}} an old man who laboureth with continuall infirmities, to a drie and dricksie oke." One early (1913) suggestion is that drucksy is connected to (perhaps metathesis of) Scottish durk, , spoil, ruin,Neudrucke frühneuenglischer Grammatiken: Pt. 1. Charles Butler's English grammar (1634), hrsg. von A. Eichler (M. Niemeyer, 1913), page 34: Einige i ſhort bieten etymologische Rätsel: so drix FM 57, m., das 'decayed wood' bedeuten muß (richtig im O.E.D.); die dazu gehörigen Adjektiva drixey, droxy und drucksy (E.D.D.) lassen Zusammenhang mit schottisch durk — to spoil, to ruin (E.D.D.) dutch Metathese zu. but that sense appears to be a simple extension of the more usual meaning of durk, "to stab with a dirk" (itself a word of obscure origin).{{R:DSL, durk}}