dimity

name

Etymology: The given name is apparently from the name of the light cotton fabric, dimity. However, since it is found primarily as an Irish name, it may have originated as a feminine equivalent of Dermot.

1. A female given name of modern usage.

   “1990, Miss Read (Dora Jessie Saint), Friends at Thrush Green, 2002, page 98, 'Raffle books,' she announced. 'What for?' enquired Dimity, feeling for her purse and about to do a vicar's wife's familiar duty.”

2. A surname.

   “The Diaper family lived in Sassafras street—the Dimity family in Pepperidge street; and the fathers of the Diaper girls and the Dimity girls were worth about the same money, and had both made it in the lumber line.”

noun

1. Alternative form of dimmity (“dusk, twilight”).

   “The twilight fell mistily—it was the first of the autumn mists—and in the dimity the undispersed families of the tawny owl called to each other, the young with keewick and the old with the proper hooroo, hooroo.”