- Dingle is a commonly used term in the vernacular of Rice University’s student body. Like many other university-specific colloquial lexical items such as sexile or darty, dingle is a blend. Its constituents are double and single, which are, in themselves, university-specific jargon. A double is a dorm room intended for and inhabited by two students, while a single is a dorm intended for and inhabited by one student. Both of these names are results of metonymy – calling the actual room by the number of inhabitants. Dingle combines both of these terms into a sort of metonymic blend, referring to double that functions like a single.
dingle(1)
noun blending
a dorm room intended for two people occupied by a single inhabitant.
Etymology : from a blend of double & single. Double borrowed from Old French from Latin duplus meaning twofold, from du- two + -plus multiplied by. Single borrowed from Old French from Latin singulus meaning one only.
Source : “My roommate’s an exchange student from Korea. She leaves in December.” “Oh, so next semester, you’ll have a dingle.” (friend at Jones College, 10/17/19)
Last modified: 11 December 2019