In a message dated 06/12/00 10:56:42 AM GMT Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
cites Ken Frazer's suggestion:
<< Might the word have been "downy?" Kipling uses the term "a downy bird"
about Bates in Stalky and Co, in the nineteenth century sense of artful, or
"with it". >>
The New Oxford Dictionary (1998) still has 'downy' as an informal term for a
shrewd, sharp person. This was certainly the sense in which my father
commonly used it throughout his life (1889-1979) and I cannot see Kipling
putting the word into Wynn's mouth when its meaning was the opposite of all
the other epithets which Wynn used about Mary.
Yours, Roger Ayers
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