Chapter DELING to DEMIJOHN of D by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

the Prince of that Country, relative to lands he, the linguist, held at Mount Dilly.”—Court’s Letter of March 23. In Long, 198.

DELOLL, s. A broker; H. from Ar. dallal; the literal meaning being one who directs (the buyer and seller to their bargain). In Egypt the word is now also used in particular for a broker of old clothes and the like, as described by Lane below. (See also under NEELÁM.)

[c. 1665.—“He spared also the house of a deceased Delale or Gentile broker, of the Dutch.”—Bernier, ed. Constable, 188. In the first English trans. this passage runs: “He has also regard to the House of the Deceased De Lale.”]

1684.—“Five Delolls, or Brokers, of Decca, after they had been with me went to Mr. Beard’s chamber.…”—Hedges, Diary, July 25; [Hak. Soc. i. 152].

1754.—“Mr. Baillie at Jugdea, accused by these villains, our dulols, who carried on for a long time their most flagrant rascality. The Dulols at Jugdea found to charge the Company 15 per cent. beyond the price of the goods.”—Fort Wm. Cons. In Long, p. 50.

1824.—“I was about to answer in great wrath, when a dalal, or broker, went by, loaded with all sorts of second-hand clothes, which he was hawking about for sale.”—Hajji Baba, 2d ed. i. 183; [ed. 1851, p. 81].

1835.—“In many of the sooks in Cairo, auctions are held … once or twice a week. They are conducted by ‘delláls’ (or brokers).… The delláls’ carry the goods up and down, announcing the sums bidden by the cries of ‘harág.’ ”—Lane, Mod. Egyptians, ed. 1860, p. 317; [5th ed. ii. 13].

DEMIJOHN, s. A large glass bottle holding 20 or 30 quarts, or more. The word is not Anglo-Indian, but it is introduced here because it has been supposed to be the corruption of an Oriental word, and suggested to have been taken from the name of Damaghan in Persia. This looks plausible (compare the Persian origin of carboy, which is another name for just the same thing), but no historical proof has yet been adduced, and it is doubted by Mr. Marsh in his Notes on Wedgwood’s Dictionary, and by Dozy (Sup. aux Dict. Arabes). It may be noticed, as worthy of further enquiry, that Sir T. Herbert (192) speaks of the abundance and cheapness of wine at Damaghan. Niebuhr, however, in a passage quoted below, uses the word as an Oriental one, and in a note on the 5th ed. of Lane’s Mod. Egyptians, 1860, p. 149, there is a remark quoted from Hammer-Purgstall as to the omission from the detail of domestic vessels of two whose names have been adopted in European languages, viz. the garra or jarra, a water ‘jar,’ and the demigan or demijan, ‘la damejeanne.’ The word is undoubtedly known in modern Arabic. The Mohit of B. Bistani, the chief modern native lexicon, explains Damijana as ‘a great glass vessel, big-bellied and narrow-necked, and covered with wicker-work; a Persian word.’² The vulgar use the forms damajana and damanjana. Dame-jeanne appears in P. Richelet, Dict. de la Langue Franc. (1759), with this definition: “[Lagena amplior] Nom que les matelots donnent à une grande bouteille couverte de natte.” It is not in the great Castilian Dict. of 1729, but it is in those of the last century, e.g. Dict. of the Span. Academy, ed. 1869. “Damajuana, f. Prov(incia de) And(alucia, CASTANA…”—and castaña is explained as a “great vessel of glass or terra cotta, of the figure of a chestnut, and used to hold liquor.” [See N.E.D. which believes the word adopted from dame-jeanne, on the analogy of ‘Bellarmine’ and ‘Greybeard.’]

1762.—“Notre vin étoit dans de grands flacons de verre (Damasjanes) dont chacun tenoit près de 20 bouteilles.”—Niebuhr, Voyage, i. 171.