Chapter Dunbar and March to Dupré of D by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Dunstable (Downright), plain speaking; blunt honesty of speech; calling a spade a spade, without euphemism. Other similar phrases are Plain Dunstable; Dunstable way, etc., in allusion to the proverb, “As plain as Dunstable highway.”—Howell: Epist. Howel., 2; Florio, Dict., 17, 85.

That’s flat, sir, as you may say, “downright Dunstable.”—Mrs. Oliphant: Phœbe, Fun., ii. 3.

Dunstan (St.), patron saint of goldsmiths and jewellers. He was a smith, and worked up all sorts of metals in his cell near Glastonbury Church. It was in this cell that, according to legend, Satan had a gossip with the saint, and Dunstan caught his sable majesty by the nose with a pair of red-hot forceps.

Dunthalmo, lord of Teutha (the Tweed). He went “in his pride against Rathmor” chief of Clutha (the Clyde), but being overcome, “his rage arose,” and he went “by night with his warriors” and slew Rathmor in his banquet-hall.—Ossian: Calthon and Colmal.

For the rest of the tale, see Calthon, p. 170.

Dupely (Sir Charles), a man who prided himself on his discernment of character, and defied any woman to entangle him in matrimony; but he mistook lady Bab Lardoon, a votary of fashion, for an unsophisticated country maiden, and proposed marriage to her.

“I should like to see the woman,” he says, “that could entangle me.…Show me a woman…and at the first glance I will discover the whole extent of her artifice.”—Burgoyne: The Maid of the Oaks, i. I.

Dupré [Du-pray], a servant of M. Darlemont, who assists his master in abandoning Julio count of Harancour (his ward) in the streets of Paris, for the sake of becoming possessor of his ward’s property. Dupré repents and confesses the crime.—Holcroft: The Deaf and Dumb (1785).