dreng Eng. Hist.
(drɛŋ)
Also 1 drench, drengh, 3 drenche, dringche, 3–4 dring(e, Sc. 6–8 dring.
[OE. dreng, ON. drengr young man, lad, fellow, (Sw. dräng man, servant, some one's ‘man’, Da. dreng boy, lad, apprentice). The modern word, had it survived in living use, would have been dring; but the OE. and Norse form dreng is retained by historical writers.]
A free tenant (specially) in ancient Northumbria, holding by a tenure older than the Norman Conquest, the nature of which was partly military, partly servile. See Maitland, ‘Northumbrian Tenures’ in Eng. Hist. Rev. V. 632.
| a 1000 Battle of Maldon 149 Forlet ða drenga sum daroð of handa, fleoᵹan of folmum. 1086 Domesday Bk. 269 b, Hujus manerii [Neweton, Lanc.] aliam terram xv. homines quos drenchs vocabant pro xv. oris tenebant..Modo sunt ibi vi. drenghs. c 1100 Charter of Ranulph in Murray Dial. S.C. Scot. 22 note, R[anulf] bisceop greteð wel alle his þeines & drenges of Ealondscire & of Norhamscire. c 1205 Lay. 12713 Androgien wes þer king; vnder him wes moni hæh dring. Ibid. 14700 Drenches. a 1300 Cursor M. 16022 (Cott.) All þai gadird o þe tun, bath freman and dring. c 1300 Havelok 2258 And siþen drenges, and siþen thaynes, And siþen knithes, and siþen sweynes. 1874 Stubbs Const. Hist. §96 (ed. 3) I. 262 Lanfranc..turned the drengs, the rent-paying tenants of his archiepiscopal estates, into knights for the defence of the country. 1890 F. W. Maitland in Eng. Hist. Rev. V. 628 Under Richard I the thegns and drengs of Northumberland paid tallage. |
b. Contemptuously: A low or base fellow. Sc.
| 1535 Stewart Cron. Scot. III. 278 Quhilk is knawin for ane wrache or dring. a 1605 Polwart Flyting w. Montgomerie 796 Deid dring, dryd sting! thou will hing but a sunȝie. 1799 Struthers To the Blackbird ix, The Captive o' some dudron dring, Dull, fat an' frowsy. |