dimpsey

dimpsey

1. (UK, West Country, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset) The time in the evening just before dusk.
   • 1896, Gratiana Longworth Knocker, “Of the Evil Doings of Nance Darvel”, in The Witch of Withyford‎, page 11:

     She sat telling with the old Jane a good two hours, for 'twas getting dimpsey when she started up hill to Grange, and that she took easy as she was getting a bit stoutish, and it made her bad to hurry.

   • 1910, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Mary Findlater, Jane Findlater, Allan McAulay, chapter VI, in The Affair at the Inn:

     If we two poor wayfarers could have sat quietly beside each other and chatted in 'e dimpsey light, it would not have been a bit bad, but there was something eternally doing.

   • 1915, Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie, “An Off-Shore Wind”, in A Tall Ship:

     There was the river: woodland paths skirting in the evening a world of silver and grey, across which bats sketched zigzag flights. Very nice in the dimpsey light, but stuffy in the daytime.