Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Any fabrics suitable for making ditty-bags for sailors' use: used only in the plural.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Plural form of ditty.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The Greeke Poets who made musicall ditties to be song to the lute or harpe, did vse to linke their staues together with one verse running throughout the whole song by equall distance, and was, for the most part, the first verse of the staffe, which kept so good sence and conformitie with the whole, as his often repetition did geue it greater grace.

    The Arte of English Poesie George Puttenham

  • The Greeke Poets who made musicall ditties to be song to the lute or harpe, did vse to linke their staues together with one verse running throughout the whole song by equall distance, and was, for the most part, the first verse of the staffe, which kept so good sence and conformitie with the whole, as his often repetition did geue it greater grace.

    The Arte of English Poesie 1569

  • Bishop, the "Prayer-meeting Bands" were still in full force, and the "ditties" were not very unpopular with the minority who did

    Unwritten History 1919

  • Coronata_, I am not aware that any of Munday's ballads are extant -- unless indeed the "ditties" in _The Banquet of daintie Conceits_ may be regarded as such; but there is no doubt that they were numerous, and hence, in the present passage, he is termed the "immediate heyre" of

    Kemps Nine Daies Wonder Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich William Kemp 1833

  • In 1635 John Cotton, one of the principal ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, declared that the new land should forbid “[l]ascivious dancing to wanton ditties, and amorous gestures and wanton dalliances . . . [which] I would bear witness against as a great flabella Libidinis [fanning of sexual desire].”

    A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010

  • Her songs aren't mere pop ditties to enjoy on the bus, they're songs to get you thinking, to make you question your core values and re-think the way you live your life.

    This week's new singles releases 2011

  • The local group plays songs that don't command attention but rather earn it, quick and quirky ditties that are also plenty catchy.

    Nightlife agenda David Malitz 2010

  • The OSS even had begun to accumulate its own ditties and songs.

    Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller 2011

  • Just five months later, the band's bubblegum soul scored again with puppy-love ditties The Love You Save and ABC.

    Michael Jackson's artistic legacy spans the decades 2009

  • Alight with enthusiasm, Professor Kaplan's conversation ranges from the ribald ditties sung by bakers kneading the dough in 18th-century France to recent moves for millers to supply flour in smaller and easier-to-lift sackfuls so as to encourage female recruits to the profession.

    The Best Baguette in Paris Lennox Morrison 2011

Comments

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  • I'm having further doubts about this Century Dictionary; or maybe it's just the way the definitions are given only for the exact form of the word.

    November 19, 2009