demy

D2E1M3Y4

noun

A printing paper size, 17½ inches by 22½ inches.

UncommonScrabble 10

Meanings

noundemy (countable and uncountable, plural demies)

plural demies

  1. countableuncountableA printing paper size, 17½ inches by 22½ inches.
  2. colloquialcountableuncountableOne holding a demyship, a kind of scholarship for Magdalen College, Oxford.
    1 more example

    1781, Samuel Johnson, Addison, Lives of the Poets, 1840, Arthur Murphy (editor), The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Volume 2, page 132, […] by whose recommendations he was elected into Magdalen College as a demy; a term by which that society denominates those elsewhere called scholars, young men who partake of the founder's benefaction, and succeed in their order to vacant fellowships; […]

  3. countableuncountableJunior scholar, specifically at Magdalen College, Oxford.

    William Lily was admitted as a dumy to Magdalen College, Oxford, by November 1486, at the age of seventeen

    2013, Hedwig Gwosdek, “The grammar atttributed to William Lily”, in Lily's grammar of Latin in English : an introduction of the eyght partes of speche, and the construction of the same, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 89

Origin

  1. Latindemi-socii“half-fellows”
  2. Englishdemy

* (scholarship): From Latin demi-socii (“half-fellows”); see socius.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

demy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/demy

MLA

“demy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/demy. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “demy,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/demy.

Source: demy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.