Etymology: < drub v.

Etymology: Appears first after 1600; all the early instances, before Hudibras, 1663, are from travellers in the Orient, and refer to the bastinado. Hence, in the absence of any other tenable suggestion, it may be conjectured to represent Arabic ḑaraba (i.e. ḍɑrɑba) to beat, to bastinado, verbal noun ḑarb (i.e. ḍɑrb) beating, a blow, a drub. There are difficulties. In Persia (modern Iran), of which Herbert wrote, the verbal noun is pronounced zŭrb; but in Turkey it is dŭrb; in North Africa the Arabic dental is retained, and colloquial pronunciations such as ḑ'rab, ḑ'rub, or ḑĕrob are recorded. It is therefore conceivable that the form drub came originally from North Africa, and was already known to Herbert as applied to the bastinado, when he went to the East. But of this we have as yet no evidence; while the absence of the word from the Mediterranean languages, into which it was quite as likely to pass as into English, is an element of doubt.