They went at it ding-dong. Fighting in good earnest. To ding is to beat or bruise (Saxon, dencgan); dong is a responsive word. One gives a ding and the other a dong.
⁂ Din is the Anglo-Saxon dyn-van, to make a din; dinung, a dinning noise.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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