Definition of "demy" in English

noun

1. A printing paper size, 17½ inches by 22½ inches.

2. (colloquial) One holding a demyship, a kind of scholarship for Magdalen College, Oxford.

   • 1781, Samuel Johnson, Addison, Lives of the Poets, 1840, Arthur Murphy (editor), The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Volume 2, page 132, […] by whose recommendations he was elected into Magdalen College as a demy; a term by which that society denominates those elsewhere called scholars, young men who partake of the founder's benefaction, and succeed in their order to vacant fellowships; […]

3. Junior scholar, specifically at Magdalen College, Oxford.