Dab

How to spell dab

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce dab

What does dab mean?

1. verbTo touch or apply something with light, gentle strokes.
2. nounA small quantity of something, applied or added in one light touch.

Dab in a sentence

• verb

  She used a cotton pad to dab the cut with antiseptic.

• noun

  A dab of glue is enough to hold the trim in place.

• verb

  He tried to dab the spilled coffee off his shirt before the meeting.

• noun

  She added a dab of mustard to the sandwich.

Where does dab come from?

Language of origin: Other

Dab first appears in Middle English around the early 1300s as a verb meaning to strike or peck lightly, and its exact source is genuinely uncertain. It is most likely imitative in origin, the short clipped sound of the word echoing the quick, gentle tap it describes, much as 'tap' and 'pat' do. Over time the violent edge of 'strike' softened into the modern sense of a light touch, and from the verb came a noun for a small amount of something applied that way, as in a dab of paint. A separate strand gave English the flatfish called a dab, recorded from the 1400s, and the colloquial 'dab hand' for an expert, whose connection to the rest may be coincidental. Because the word is so short and entirely phonetic, its spelling has never drifted, which is exactly why it is one of the easiest words in English to write.

How the word is built

• dab (single morpheme; no prefix or suffix)