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From: Don <g@crcomp.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Archaic words
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2024 05:09:14 -0000 (UTC)
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David Duffy wrote:
> Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>> Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>>
>>> I'm reading Fletcher Pratt's _The Well of the Unicorn_, and have
>>> stumbled over "deserion", "deese", and "tercia". From context, I
>>> think that all of them are military terms. Maybe
>>
>> tercio  or  tercia : a Spanish or Italian infantry regiment of the
>> 16th and 17th century
>
> Yes, 300 men strong. And a deese is most likely a platoon of, I guess,
> 10 (dix) led by a serjeant (the deserion, which I would gloss as "of
> service", as in sergeant), who owes feudal loyalty to a Count. In the case
> of Luronne, he is "a very good reasoner...[who] has had the instruction
> of the Lyceum of Anne", and Morarday is "captain and deserion to the
> Viscount..a Vulking of the war service".

The enigma excursively expands. Entertain, if you will, a six sample
survey stating "deese" is not a Scrabble word:

<https://www.thewordfinder.com/define/deese>

Yet, "deese" is found in the _Sailor's Word-Book_ (1867):

    DEESE. An east-country term for a place where herrings are dried.

<https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26000/pg26000-images.html#:~:text=deese>

Danke,

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