Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Darbies
Dar′bies
(där′bĭz)
, Noun.
pl.
Manacles; handcuffs.
[Cant]
Jem Clink will fetch you the
darbies
. Sir W. Scott.
☞ In “The Steel Glass” by Gascoigne, printed in 1576, occurs the line “To binde such babes in father Derbies bands.”
Definition 2024
darbies
darbies
English
Noun
darbies
- plural of darby
- (Britain, slang) handcuffs
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 73,
- Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't catch him and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping people […]
- 1885, Lewis Carroll, "A Tangled Tale" in The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll, New York: Vintage, 1976, p. 1058,
- And he says, 'I'll go along quiet, Bobby,' he says, 'without the darbies,' he says.
- 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Penguin, 1992, p. 592,
- Second watch: (Produces handcuffs) Here are the darbies.
- 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 26,
- Sentry, are you there? / Just ease this darbies at the wrist, and roll me over fair, / I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 73,