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