Chapter Driver of Europe to Drunkenness of D by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Drop Serene (gutta serena). An old name for amaurosis. It was at one time thought that a transparent, watery humour, distilling on the optic nerve, would produce blindness without changing the appearance of the eye.

"So thick a `drop serene' hath quenched these orbs."Milton: Paradise Lost, iii. 25.

Drown the Miller (To). To put too much water into grog or tea. The idea is that the supply of water is so great that even the miller, who uses a water wheel, is drowned with it.

Drowned Rat As wet as a drowned rat - i.e. soaking wet. Drowned rats certainly look deplorably wet, but so also do drowned mice, drowned cats, and drowned dogs, etc.

Drowned in a Butt of Malmsey George, Duke of Clarence, being allowed to choose by what death he would die, chose drowning in malmsey wine (1477). See the continuation of Monstrelet, 196; Fulgosus, ix. 12; Martin du Bellais's Memoirs (year 1514).
   Admitting this legend to be an historic fact, it is not unique: Michael Harslob, of Berlin, wished to meet death in a similar way in 1571, if we may credit the inscription on his tomb: -

"In cyatho vini pleno cum musca periret,
Sic, ait Oeneus, sponte perire velim." '
"When in a cup of wine a fly was drowned.
So, said Vinarius, may my days be crowned."

Drowning Men Drowning men catch at straws. Persons in desperate circumstances cling in hope to trifles wholly inadequate to rescue or even help them.

Drows or Trows. A sort of fairy race, residing in hills and caverns. They are curious artificers in iron and precious metals. (Zetland superstition.)

"I hung about thy neck that gifted chain, which all in our isles know was wrought by no earthly artist, but by the Drows in the secret recesses of their caverns." - Scott: The Pirate, chap.x.

Drub, Drubbing To flog, a flogging. Compare Greek tribo, to rub, bruise; Anglo-Saxon, drepan, to beat.

Drug It is a mere drug in the market. Something not called for, which no one will buy. French drogue = rubbish, as Ce n'est que de la drogue; hence droguet (drugget), inferior carpet-cloth made of rubbish or inferior wool, etc.

Druid A chief priest (Celtic, der, superior; wydd, priest or instructor). In Taliesin we read, Bûm gwydd yngwarth an (at length I became a priest or wydd). It was after this period that the wydds were divided into two classes, the Der-wydds and the Go-wydds (Druids and Ovidds). Every chief had his druid, and every chief druid was allowed a guard of thirty men (Strabo). The order was very wealthy. (Not derived from the Greek drus, an oak.)
    Patricius tells us that the Druids were wont to borrow money to be repaid in the life to come. His words are, "Druidæ pecuniam mutuo accipiebant in posteriore vita reddituri."

`Like money the Druids borrowed,
In t'other world to be restoréd."
Butler: Hudibras, part iii. canto 1,

Drum A crowded evening party, a contraction of "drawing-room" (dr'-'oom). Cominges, the French ambassador, writing to Louis XIV., calls these assemblies drerums and driwromes. (See Rout, Hurricane.)

"The Comte de Broglie . . . goes sometimes to he drerums, and sometimes to the driwrome of the Princess of Wales." -Nineteenth Century: Comte de Cominges; Sept., 1891, p.461.

"It is impossible to live in a drum." - Lady M. W.Montagu.

   John Drum's entertainment. Turning an unwelcome guest out of doors. The allusion is to drumming a soldier out of a regiment.

Drum Ecclesiastic The pulpit cushion, often vigorously thumped by what are termed "rousing preachers."

"When Gospel trumpeter, surrounded
With long-eared rout, to battle sounded;
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick."
Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto 1.

Drum-head Court-martial One held in haste; like a court-martial summoned on the field round the big drum to deal summarily with an offender.