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English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Dab   /dæb/   Listen
noun
Dab  n.  A skillful hand; a dabster; an expert. (Colloq.) "One excels at a plan or the titlepage, another works away at the body of the book, and the third is a dab at an index."



Dab  n.  (Zool.) A name given to several species of flounders, esp. to the European species, Pleuronectes limanda. The American rough dab is Hippoglossoides platessoides.



Dab  n.  
1.
A gentle blow with the hand or some soft substance; a sudden blow or hit; a peck. "A scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak."
2.
A small mass of anything soft or moist.



verb
Dab  v. i.  (past & past part. dabbed; pres. part. dabbing)  
1.
To strike or touch gently, as with a soft or moist substance; to tap; hence, to besmear with a dabber. "A sore should... be wiped... only by dabbing it over with fine lint."
2.
To strike by a thrust; to hit with a sudden blow or thrust. "To dab him in the neck."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dab" Quotes from Famous Books



... so far, by help of our first example, in the etymology of our entire class, as to rest in the easily memorable root 'dab,' short for dabble, as the foundation of comprehensive nomenclature. But the earlier (if not Aryan!) root 'dip,' must be taken good heed to, also, because, as we further study the customs of aquatic chickens, we shall find that they really mass themselves under the three great heads ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... I'm shorely out thar four hours; an' when Spanish Bill discovers me I'm mighty near froze. Taos nights in November has a heap of things in common with them Artic regions we hears of, where them fur-lined sports goes in pursoot of that North Pole. Bein' froze, an' mebby from an over-dab of nose-paint, I never saveys about this yere Spanish Bill meetin' up with me that a-way ontil later. But by what the barkeep says, he drug me into the Tub of Blood an' allows he's got ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... silk necktie, dripping, from the bottom of the jar. "That's sucked up the very last drop, sir. Hold still, sir, and let me lay this just on the top, and as soon as you begins to feel it too warm I will take it away and hang it up to dry. I won't dab the place with the handkerchy, because it will feel cooler if you let it ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... load of wood. He was a man of the world, and knew all about the performance. After he had looked at the sketch, the children, and finally the mother, all came round my stool and had a good long look at my work. Even so the mother would not let the children dab their toes into my paints, or generally become a nuisance. For this unexpected manifestation of a sense of the fitness of things, I felt grateful to her, and, before I went away, found a way of recompensing the children for the sorrow they must ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... you going to do, Nurse Jane?" asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as he saw the muskrat lady housekeeper going out in the kitchen one morning, with an apron on, and a dab of white flour on ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis


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