dornick 2. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

dornick²

SYLLABICATION:	dor·nick
PRONUNCIATION:	dôrnk
NOUN:	Lower Northern U.S. A stone small enough to throw from a field being cleared.
ETYMOLOGY:	Probably from Irish Gaelic dornóg, a small round stone.
REGIONAL NOTE:	The word dornick is used from Pennsylvania westward to Iowa. It probably comes from Irish Gaelic dornóg, “a small round stone.” Craig M. Carver, author of American Regional Dialects, attributes the introduction of the term to the Scotch-Irish Protestants from Northern Ireland who emigrated to America in the 18th century. Dornick must have been one of the “few purely Irish terms” in the otherwise English and Scots lexicon of the Scotch-Irish.


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.