adj. donnism, donnishness, subs. (university).—Arrogant: arrogance. [From DON (q.v.).]
1823. JOHN CAMPBELL, Hints for Oxford, p. 66. The Bachelors, we imagine, are the most pleasant set of beings about Oxford…. They have luckily not been so long emancipated as to have become stiff, and DONNISH, and disagreeable.
c. 1830. Ballad, quoted in Notes and Queries, 2nd S., xii., 154.
| Our Yankee, who’d commenced the fight and rather to be DONNISH meant, | |
| Bam squabbled felt (as well he might) with genu-ine astonishment. |
1853. THACKERAY, in Scribner’s Magazine, Oct., 1887, p. 415. At Boston is very good literate company indeed; it is like Edinburgh for that,—a vast amount of toryism and DONNISHNESS everywhere.
1888. M. A. WARD, Robert Elsmere, vol. I., bk. I., ch. ii., p. 48. He was a curious man, a refined-looking, melancholy creature, with a face that reminded you of Wordsworth, and cold DONNISH ways, except to his children and the poor.
