dimmit

plural dimmits

1. CornwallDevonUKWest CountryalternativecountabledialectaluncountableAlternative form of dimmet (Twilight; dusk; crepusculum)

   ‘Punch 'll mind the door, and bark if any one comes nigh. Then in the dimmits’ (twilight) ‘you can go.’

   1893, Sabine Baring-Gould, “In the Smoke” (chapter VIII), in Mrs. Curgenven of Curgenven, volume III, Methuen & Co., page 93

   5 more examples

   “ My Billy is out with his boat in the bay. To snare the bright herring for me, And I, with my arms, in the dimmit of day, Will snare the bold son of the sea.”

   1858, Edward Capern, “Kitty Lile; or, Mazed Kate of Clovelly”, in Ballads and Songs, London: W. Kent & Co., page 132

   The following account of the same custom, as practised at Bideford, North Devon, has been communicated to me by J. G. Cooper, Esq., of that town “ The custom appears to have been immediately at the end of the day when the reapers had completed their cutting, usually in the twilight of the autumn evening (‘ in the dimmit ’ : Devonice), for the whole party to gather in a circle, […]

   1867 August 29, L. Gidley, “A Harvest Custom in Devonshire”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume IV, number 186, page 215

   If you choose to carry the girl about in your cart, to Polworthy an' back, 'tis no account o' mine ; nor if you're a mind to waste your time in the dimmit (twilight), hangin' round Gridge's cottage, as I do hear ; but you won't drag me into it, and that's final.

   1888, G. B. Stuart, “Poppy”, in Charles W. Wood, editor, The Argosy, Summer edition, volume XLV, London, page 81

   When she left the Hall she went by the lower path across the park, not by the church and the sea. It was the gloaming of a November afternoon—the " dimmits," as we call it in Cornwall—and "gloaming," as you know, at that time means almost the dark.

   1894, W. J. Knox Little, chapter VI, in The Waif from the Waves, London: Chapman & Hall, page 53

   'Twas getting on vor the dimmits, and I hitched up the mare and went vore tii the back entrance. As I passed the kitchen winder I seed Albertina sitting there all alone, because 'er master and missus was well-to-do, and sat in the parlour evenings ; and I zim tü go all of a treemor like.

   1896 June 29, Mary Hartier, “An Evening with Hodge”, in The English Illustrated Magazine, number 153, page 259