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is a substantive, especially in the expression "in the dismal," i.e. in the dismal time or days. Later it became adjectival, especially in combination with "days." It has been connected with "decimal," med. Latin _decimalis_, belonging to a tithe or tenth, and thus the "dismal days" are the unpleasant days connected with the extortion and oppression of exacting payment of tithes. According to the _New English Dictionary_, quoting Professor W. W. Skeat, "dismal" is derived, through an Anglo-Fr. _dis mal_, from the Lat. _dies mali_, evil or unpropitious days. This Anglo-French expression, explained as _les mal jours_, is found in a MS. of Rauf de Linham's _Art de Kalender_, 1256. These days of evil omen were known as _Dies Aegyptiaci_ (Du Cange, _Glossarium_, s.v.) or Egyptian days, either as having been instituted by Egyptian astrologers or with reference to the "ten plagues"; so Chaucer, "I trowe hit was in the dismal, That were the ten woundes of Egipte" (_Book of the Duchesse_, 1206). There were two such days in each month. See Skeat, Trans. _Philol. Soc._ (1888), p. 2, and note on the line in the "Book of the Duchesse," _The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer_, vol. i. (1894). DISORDERLY HOUSE, in law, a house in which the conduct of its inmates is such as to become a public nuisance, or a house where persons congregate to the probable disturbance of the public peace or other commission of crime. In England, by the Disorderly Houses Act 1751, the term includes common bawdy houses or brothels,[1] common gaming houses, common betting houses and disorderly places of entertainment. The keeping of such is a misdemeanour punishable by fine or imprisonment, and in the case of a brothel also punishable on summary conviction by the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885; the letting out for gain for indiscriminate prostitution of a room or rooms in a house will make it as much a brothel in law as if the whole house were let out for the purpose. Where, however, a woman occupies a house or room which is frequented by men for the purpose of committing fornication with her, she cannot be convicted of keeping a disorderly house. See also PROSTITUTION. FOOTNOTE: [1] The etymology of this word has been confused by the early adoption into English usage of the O. Fr. _bordel_. The two words are in origin quite distinct. Brothel is an O. Eng. word for a person, not a place. It meant an abandoned vagabond, o
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