subs. (common).—Money. [Said to be from ‘gold-dust,’ but this is a mere guess.]

1

  1655.  FULLER, The Church History of Britain, vi., 299. My lord, quoth the king, presently deposit your hundred pounds in gold, or else no going hence all the daies of your life…. The abbot down with his DUST, and glad he escaped so, returned to Reading.

2

  1671.  EACHARD, Observations. If they did intend to trade with Christ they must down with the DUST instantly, for to his knowledge the Papists did offer a vast sum of money for England’s Christ.

3

  1748.  T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). DUST … also a cant name for money, as down with your dust, put, pay, or lay down your money, etc.

4

  1834.  W. H. AINSWORTH, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. xiii. You have thrown away a second chance. Play or pay, all the world over…. Down with the DUST.

5

  1840.  The Comic Almanack. ‘The Dust about the Gold Dust,’ p. 217. She cried, ‘Come, down, now, with your DUST!’

6

  1890.  Welfare, March, p. 5, col. 1. ‘Strange Sermons.’ It is related of Dean Swift that, preaching of charity, he comprised his sermon within a single short sentence. His text was from Proverbs xix., 17: ‘He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.’ His treatment of the subject consisted of the words: ‘If you approve the security, down with your DUST!’

7

  TO DUST ONE’S JACKET, CASSOCK, or COAT, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To thrash; metaphorically, to criticise severely.—See quot., 1557, and cf., BASTE.

8

  1557.  TUSSER, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, ch. 49, st. b., p. 107 (E.D.S.).

        What fault deserues
  a BRUSHED COTE.

9

  1612.  The Passenger: Of Benvenuto, 51. Obserue my English Gentleman, that blowes haue a wonderfull prerogatiue in the feminine sex; for if shee be a bad woman, there is no more proper plaister to mend her, then this: but if (which is a rare chance) she be good, to DUST her often, hath in it a singular, vnknowne, and as it were an inscrutable vertue to make her much better: and to reduce her, if possible to perfection.

10

  1698.  FARQUHAR, Love and a Bottle, Act v., Sc. ii. Tell me presently where your master is, sirrah, or I’ll DUST the secret out of YOUR JACKET.

11

  1771.  SMOLLETT, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, l. 26. Prankley, shaking his cane, bid him hold his tongue, otherwise he would DUST HIS CASSOCK for him.

12

  1837.  R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends (The Merchant of Venice).

                    Old Shylock was making a racket,
And threatening how well he’d DUST EVERY MAN’S JACKET,
Who’d help’d her in getting aboard of the packet.

13

  1865.  The Saturday Review, 8 April. If he will turn to Theocritus, v. 119, he will learn that there is a good and respectable Greek ancestry for the cant phrase, ‘to DUST ONE’S JACKET’:—

                ὅκα μάν ποκα τεῖδέ τυ δάσας
Εὐμάριδας ἐκάθηρε,
where ἐκάθηρε means, ‘purgavit te,’ ‘dressed you,’ ‘gave you a dressing,’ ‘DUSTED YOUR JACKET.’ So great is the similarity of ideas in all nations and languages, of which, indeed, there is abundant illustration in other passages of Theocritus.

14

  1872.  Fun, 7 Sept. Footman:—Well, the only difference is I DUSTS his [coat] off his back, and he DUSTS mine on my back.

15

  TO GET UP AND DUST, or TO DUST OUT OF, verb. phr. (American).—To move quickly; to leave hurriedly. For synonyms, see ABSQUATULATE.

16

  TO HAVE DUST IN THE EYES, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To be sleepy; to DRAW STRAWS (q.v.). Said mainly of children: e.g., ‘The DUSTMAN is coming.’

17

  TO KICK UP, or RAISE A DUST, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To make a disturbance, or much ado.

18

  1759.  SMOLLETT, Letter to Wilkes, quoted in D. Hannay’s Smollett (1887), p. 132. If the affair cannot be compromised, we intend to KICK UP A DUST, and die hard.

19

  1766.  H. BROOKE, The Fool of Quality, ii., 41. Our lay and ecclesiastical champions for arbitrary power … have RAISED such A DUST, and kept such a coil about the divine, hereditary, and indefeasible right of kings.

20

  1815.  SCOTT, Guy Mannering, ch. xxxiii. ‘Is there not a strong room up yonder in the old castle?’ ‘Aye is there, sir; my uncle, the constable, ance kept a man there for three days in auld Ellangowan’s time. But there was an unco DUST about it—it was tried in the inner house afore the feifteen.’

21

  TO THROW DUST IN THE EYES, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To mislead; to dupe.—See BAMBOOZLE.

22

  TO BITE THE DUST, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To knock under; to be mortified, or shamed.

23