dine with Duke Humphrey

English

Etymology

Said to be from the practice of the poor gentry, who beguiled the dinner hour by a promenade near the tomb of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in Old Saint Paul's.

Verb

dine with Duke Humphrey (third-person singular simple present dines with Duke Humphrey, present participle dining with Duke Humphrey, simple past and past participle dined with Duke Humphrey)

1. (archaic, intransitive) To go without dinner.

   Synonym: box Harry

   • c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):

     When I want prouant w^th: Humfrie
     I sup, & when benighted,
     I repose in Powles w^th: waking soules,
     Yet neuer am affrighted.

     When I lack food, I go
     without it, and when benighted,
     I repose in St. Paul’s (graveyard) with ghosts,
     Yet am never scared.

   • 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC:

     It has been said that there is no instance, in modern times, of a Chuzzlewit having been found on terms of intimacy with the Great. But here again the sneering detractors who weave such miserable figments from their malicious brains, are stricken dumb by evidence. For letters are yet in the possession of various branches of the family, from which it distinctly appears, being stated in so many words, that one Diggory Chuzzlewit was in the habit of perpetually dining with Duke Humphrey.

Usage notes

• Common in Elizabethan literature.