From Middle English dyne, dynne, from Old English dyne, from Proto-West Germanic *duni, from Proto-Germanic *duniz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰún-is, from *dʰwen- (“to make a noise”).
Cognate with English tone, Sanskrit धुनि (dhúni, “sounding”), ध्वनति (dhvánati, “to make a noise, to roar”), Old Norse dynr, Norwegian Nynorsk dynja, Swedish dån, dön.
Meanings
(countable, uncountable) A loud noise; a cacophony or loud commotion.
England certainly made a mockery of the claim that they might somehow be intimidated by the Glasgow din. Celtic Park was a loud, seething pit of bias. 2014 November 18, Daniel Taylor, “England and Wayne Rooney see off Scotland in their own back yard”, in The Guardian:
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears? c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
din and bustle
The patter of feet, and clatter of strap and swivel, seemed to swell into a bewildering din, but they were almost upon the fielato offices, where the carretera entered the town, before a rifle flashed. 1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 7, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:
So many faces Clive had never seen by daylight, and looking terrible, like cadavers jerked upright to welcome the newly dead. Invigorated by this jolt of misanthropy, he moved sleekly through the din, ignored his name when it was called, withdrew his elbow when it was plucked [...] 1998, Ian McEwan, Amsterdam, New York: Anchor, published 1999, Part 1, Chapter 1, pp. 9-10:
How often, hither wandering down,
My Arthur found your shadows fair,
And shook to all the liberal air
The dust and din and steam of town: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto LXXXVII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 129:
[B]red to war, / He knew the battle’s din afar, / And joyed to hear it swell. 1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “Canto Fifth. The Court.”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, […]; London: William Miller, and John Murray, →OCLC, stanza IV, page 245:
From Middle English dynnen, from Old English dynnan, from Proto-Germanic *dunjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwen- (“to make a noise”).
Meanings
(intransitive) To make a din, to resound.
My confused senses received a dull roar of pounding feet and dinning voices as the herald of victory. 1920, Zane Grey, “The Rube’s Pennant”, in The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 68:
Those who slept that Sunday night in the Juvenile Shelter were wakened next morning by a bell dinning up and down the corridors[.] 1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers' Women, Netley, SA: Fontana Books, published 1978, page 231:
Should she speak of having been at the fire herself—or should she not? The question dinned in her brain so loudly that she could hardly hear what her companion was saying […] 1924, Edith Wharton, chapter 4, in Old New York: New Year’s Day (The ’Seventies), New York: D. Appleton & Co., pages 62–63:
1820, William Wordsworth, “The Waggoner” Canto 2, in The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Volume 2, p. 21,
For, spite of rumbling of the wheels,
A welcome greeting he can hear;—
It is a fiddle in its glee
Dinning from the CHERRY TREE!
(intransitive) (of a place) To be filled with sound, to resound.
The room was dinning with the strains of an invisible orchestra and the vocal uproar […] 1914, Rex Beach, chapter 3, in The Auction Block, New York: Harper & Bros., page 33:
(transitive) To assail (a person, the ears) with loud noise.
1716, Joseph Addison, The Free-Holder: or Political Essays, London: D. Midwinter & J. Tonson, No. 8, 16 January, 1716, pp. 45-46,
She ought in such Cases to exert the Authority of the Curtain Lecture; and if she finds him of a rebellious Disposition, to tame him, as they do Birds of Prey, by dinning him in the Ears all Night long.
No alarm-clock dinned her to get up but the morning light woke her, pouring through the uncurtained glass. 1938, Graham Greene, chapter 1, in Brighton Rock, New York: Vintage, published 2002:
Oh ye! whose ears are dinn’d with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody,—
Sit ye near some old cavern’s mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired! 1817, John Keats, “On the Sea”, in Richard Monckton Milnes, editor, Life, Letters, and Literary Remains, of John Keats, volume 2, London: Edward Moxon, published 1848, page 291:
(transitive) To repeat (something) continuously, as though to the point of deafening or exhausting somebody, or (sometimes particularly) to impress or instill (it, into someone).
This has been often dinned in my Ears. 1724, The Hibernian Patriot: Being a Collection of the Drapier’s Letters to the People of Ireland concerning Mr. Wood’s Brass Half-Pence, London: Jonathan Swift, published 1730, Letter 2, p. 61:
His mother had dinned The Whole Duty of Man into him in early childhood. 2004, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Penguin, page 183:
[…] despite all the wisdom that had been taught, all the lessons dinned into easily frightened children, and, on too many occasions in all those years, enforced by fire and sword, the mystery here was one of and for women. 2014 April 1, Susan Shwartz, Shards of Empire, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
“Mamma, do you forget that I have promised to marry Roger Hamley?” said Cynthia quietly.
“No! of course I don’t—how can I, with Molly always dinning the word ‘engagement’ into my ears? […]” 1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, chapter 50, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, →OCLC:
By careful early conditioning, by games and cold water, by the rubbish that was dinned into them at school and in the Spies and the Youth League, by lectures, parades, songs, slogans, and martial music, the natural feeling had been driven out of them. 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 6, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001: