the devil a one

the devil a one

1. (now regional, dated, idiomatic, slang) Not a single one, none (of a number of people or things).
   • 1653, Thomas Urquhart, transl., The First Book of the Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais‎, London: Richard Baddeley, Book 2, Chapter 26, p. 168-169:

     making great chear with a good deal of vineger, the devil a one of them did forbear from his victuals, it was a triumphant and incomparable spectacle to see how they ravened and devoured.

   • 1709, Susanna Centlivre, The Man’s Bewitch’d‎, London: Bernard Lintott, act V, page 66:

     […] she wou’d have corrupted all their Wives; the Devil a one wou’d have made her own Butter, after being acquainted with her.

   • 1790, John O’Keeffe, The Highland Reel‎, Dublin, act 2, page 34:

     (He helps them on with the clothes.) There, the devil a one of them can know you now— […] you’re so nicely disguised,

   • c. 1813, anonymous author, “Perry’s Victory”, in Robert W. Neeser, editor, American Naval Songs and Ballads‎, New Haven: Yale University Press, published 1938, page 187:

     Whole volleys of muskets were level’d at him,
     But the devil a one ever graz’d e’en a limb,

   • 1912, George A. Birmingham, Priscilla’s Spies, New York: Hodder and Stoughton, G.H. Doran, Chapter 14, pp. 183-184,

     Jimmy says it’s hard to tell what she’d be after. He did think at the first go off that it might be cockles; but it’s not, for he took her to Carribee strand, where there’s plenty of them, and the devil a one she’d pick up.

2. (now regional, dated, idiomatic, slang) Not; with a singular pronoun, negates the clause.

   The devil a one of me will ever set foot there.

   • 1916, Seumas O’Brien, “The Lady of the Moon”, in The Whale and the Grasshopper and other Fables,‎, Boston: Little, Brown, page 164:

     […] I met just as strange a man, and he sitting on his hat on the banks of the Fairy Lake of Lisnavarna, watching the moon’s reflection in the clear waters, and the devil a one of him knew that he was contrary at all.