Word of the Day : November 7, 2018

derring-do \dair-ing-DOO\ noun

Definition

: daring action : daring

Did You Know?

Derring-do is a quirky holdover from Middle English that came to occupy its present place in the language by a series of mistakes and misunderstandings. In Middle English, dorring don meant simply "daring to do." For example, Geoffrey Chaucer used dorring don around 1374 when he described a knight "daring to do" brave deeds. The phrase was misprinted as derring do in a 16th-century edition of a 15th-century work by poet John Lydgate, and Edmund Spenser took it up from there, assuming it was meant as a substantive, or noun phrase. (A glossary to Spenser's work defined it as "manhood and chevalrie.") Sir Walter Scott and others in the 19th century got the phrase from Spenser and brought it into modern use.

Aired November 7, 2018

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