doler

[Dave]

I have tried this one before and been annoyed at what looked like the rejection of a perfectly good word.  No more Mr Nice Guy (stop laughing, you ignorant lot!):

dole /0dəʊl/ verb² trans. LME.
[ORIGIN from dole noun¹.]

1 Give as a dole; distribute as charity. LME.

†2 Spread about, around; distribute. E–M18.

3 Give out in small quantities; deal out sparingly. M18.

A. Moorehead At each meal he carefully doled out the food.

doler noun a person who doles something (usu. foll. by out) L16.



And the Shorter Oxford doesn't even mark it as obsolete...

[Binkie]

 

[Dave]

Tried that one yourself by some chance, Binks?   It always looked very plausible to me, somehow...

[Binkie]

I certainly did.....probably not for the first time, either!  I'm still annoyed by the fact that one can apparently rewrap something, but not rewarp. What else would you call the action of warping a loom again, I ask?  I think I shall give up on English altogether, and speak only Inuktitut or Tz'utujil instead.
Exits left, muttering crossly.

[Alan W]

How often is doler used? A search engine finds quite a few texts with the expression doler out (sometimes hyphenated). It is also possible to find a few instances of doler being used without out. For example, a Time article of 1935 about the Virgin Islands contained the sentence, "Mobs shrieked that Welfare Commissioner Alonzo Moron, doler of relief food, held back supplies." [If I was that commissioner, I'd think about changing my name.]

So doler will be added to our list.

[Dave]

YES!

[biggerbirdbrain]

D**n! I shouldn't have fallen asleep ... I could've had that one in first! But, another brilliant stroke, mad bard! You're simply awesome!