druxy

Meanings

1. Having decayed spots or streaks of a whitish colour; rotten, decayed.

Etymology

From drix (rotten part of wood) [Term?] + -y (the forms drixy, droxy and drucksy occur in various dialects), of unclear origin. The adjective is attested since at least the 1580s, in The Arte of English Poesie. One early (1913) suggestion is that drucksy is connected to (perhaps metathesis of) Scottish durk (“spoil, ruin”), but that sense appears to be a simple extension of the more usual meaning of durk, "to stab with a dirk" (itself a word of obscure origin).