One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (5 page)

D IN PRINT AND PROVERB

1. (in literature)
“He flung out in his violent way, and said with a D, ‘Then do as you like.’”
—Charles Dickens,
Great Expectations.
The
D
here is a euphemism for
damn.

2. (in literature)
“Boxer [the horse] could not get beyond the letter D.”
—George Orwell,
Animal Farm

3. (in literature)
As a monogram:
“‘I can’t help but notice the interesting design on your ring,’ I told him. ‘What do you call that?’ ‘I call it,’ he said, ‘the letter D.’”
—Vivian Vande Velde,
Heir Apparent

4. (in literature)
“D is for lots of things.”
—Neil Gaiman,
The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes

5. (in literature)
“D is the human back.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding

6.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
He would commence a letter with the words “Dear
Sir,” forming the letter “D” with painful, accurate slowness, elaborating and thickening the up and down strokes, and being troubled when he had to leave that letter for the next one; he built the next letter by hair strokes and would start on the third with hatred.
—James Stephens,
The Crock of Gold

7.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.

IN SHAPE

8.
n.
A semicircle on a pool table that is about twenty-two inches in diameter and is used in snooker games.
[T]he balls are arranged to begin, with the cueball in the D.
—Robert Byrne,
Byrne’s Wonderful World of Pool and Billiards: A Cornucopia of Instruction,
Strategy, Anecdote, and Colorful Characters

9.
n.
Something having the shape of a D.

10.
n.
A shoe width size
(narrower than E, wider than C).
Most men’s shoes are in a D width and women’s in a B width.
—Joe Ellis,
Running Injury-Free:
How to Prevent, Treat, and Recover from Dozens of Painful Problems

11.
n.
A trotting pattern for horse training.
When the horse can trot the D, we are ready to pick up our lead.
—John Lyons,
Lyons on Horses: John Lyons’
Proven Conditioned-Response Training Program

12.
n.
D duct:
a hot air duct whose cross-section is shaped like the letter D.

13.
n.
D net:
a net “with an orifice shaped like a D, used for collecting plankton from the bottom of the ocean bed.”—Dr. John Burkardt

14.
n.
D ring:
“a metal ring in the shape of the letter D; the flat side commonly allows a strap to pass through.”—Dr. John Burkardt

15.
n.
D valve:
a metal D-shaped valve used in steam engines.

PLACEMENT

16.
n.
The fourth in a series.

17.
n.
A grade in school indicating “unsatisfactory.”
Last year he got all A’s on his report card and this year he’s getting mostly D’s and F’s. We’re so proud.
—Luke Rhinehart,
The Dice Man

18.
n.
One graded with a D.
Many parents will resist abolishing letter grades because we grew up with them and apparently have an obsession with labeling each child an “A student” or a “D student.”
—Jeffrey Freed,
Right-Brained
Children in a Left-Brained World: Unlocking the

Potential of Your ADD Child

19.
n.
A Roman numeral for 500.

20.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated D
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).

21.
n.
The saloon deck of the
Titanic.
On most
Titanic
floorplans, D is Saloon Deck.
—Chris Mcqueeny, “Encyclopedia Titanica” Message Board

MISCELLANEOUS

22.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the consonant D means
“doing, creating, creation, throwing light.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native American Approach to Understanding Your Name

23.
n.
The fourth letter of the alphabet.
In the days that followed, Lemprière wrestled with the letter “D.”
—Lawrence Norfolk,
Lemprière’s
Dictionary
You might see yourself selling your gun to a gigantic letter D.
—Harry Lorayne,
The Memory Book

24.
n.
A group of artworks.
Representational and abstract elements were combined by Sam Gilliam in the D Series, in which the canvas is a three dimensional conversation with paint and the enigmatic hint of subject with the inclusion of a single letter.—Carolina Arts

MARKS AND BRANDS

25.
n.
A mark of shame for drunkards in Colonial
America.
Drunkards were forced to wear a great shame-letter D, “made of red cloth and set upon white, and to continue for a year.”
—David Hackett Fischer,
Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America

26.
n.
The brand of a Civil War deserter.
The letter D would be seared onto his buttock, his hip, or his cheek. It would be a letter one and a half inches high—the regulations became quite specific on this point—and it would either be burned on with a hot iron or cut with a razor and the wound
filled with black powder, both to cause irritation and indelibility.
—Simon Winchester,
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of “The Oxford English Dictionary”

27.
n.
A mark indicating “killed in combat.”
With a ballpoint pen, my best friend in Vietnam had written the letter D on the figure of every man that had been photographed for his album. D stood for dead and that singular tattoo was marked on all poses—sitting, standing, eating, or laughing.
—D. S. Lliteras,
Into the Ashes: A Novel

SCIENTIFIC MATTERS

28.
n.
A vitamin (cholecalciferol).
Vitamin D works with calcium to build strong bones and teeth and maintain the nervous system…. For most people, sun exposure is the primary source of vitamin D.
Food sources include vitamin D–fortified milk, eggs, fish liver oils, and fatty fish such as herring, mackerel, and salmon.
—American Medical Association

29.
n.
(biology)
Aspartate,
an amino acid.

30.
n.
A layer of the ionosphere,
as in the “D layer.”

[The D layer is the] lowest part of the ionosphere, which appears at an altitude of 50–80km. This layer has a negative effect on radio waves, because it only absorbs radio-energy. It develops shortly after sunrise and disappears shortly after sunrise. This layer reaches maximum ionization when the sun is at its highest point in the sky.
—WWDX Propagation College

EXERTIONS OF POWER

31.
n.
A planned attack,
as in “D-Day.”
“D-Day” is a military term designating the start date for launching an operation, but in modern history it generally refers to the events of June 6th 1944.
—D-Day Museum

32.
n.
(physics)
A state of atomic energy.

SYMPHONY IN D

33.
n.
The second note in a C-major musical scale.

34.
n.
A written or printed representation of a musical note D.

35.
n.
A string, key, or pipe tuned to the note D.

36.
n.
The fourth section in a piece of music.
We came to grief a few bars after letter D, where solo passages for woodwinds are mated to triadic figurations in the piano part, and Stokowski signaled a halt.
—Glenn Gould,
The Glenn Gould Reader

37.
n.
D hole:
a D-shaped sound hole in a guitar or viol.

CONTRACTION ’D

38.
v.
Had.
He
’d
better do it.

39.
v.
Did.
How
’d
she do that?

40.
v.
Would.
I
’d
like to go.

41.
v.
(informal)
Do or did.
How
d’
you take your coffee?

FOREIGN MEANINGS

42.
adj.
(German)
Through,
as in
D-Zug,
a through or express train.

43.
v.
(French) (slang)
To wangle,
as in
Employer le système D.

44.
n.
(Hebrew)
The letter
D
is called
daleth,
which means “a door.”