Dart

How to spell dart

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce dart

What does dart mean?

1. verbTo move suddenly and quickly in a particular direction.
2. nounA small pointed object designed to be thrown or fired, especially one used in the pub game.
3. nounA tapered tuck stitched into a garment to shape the fabric to the body.

Dart in a sentence

• verb

  The child tried to dart across the busy road before the lights changed.

• noun

  He aimed the dart carefully at the centre of the board.

• noun

  The tailor added a dart at the waist so the jacket would fit more closely.

• verb

  I watched a squirrel dart up the trunk and vanish into the branches.

• noun

  A single feathered dart lay on the floor beneath the wall.

• noun

  Each dart in the bodice was pressed flat before the seams were joined.

Where does dart come from?

Language of origin: French

The word came into English in the 1300s from the Old French 'dart', meaning a light throwing spear or javelin. The French form itself goes back to a Frankish word, 'daroth', a Germanic term for a spear or pointed missile, so the root is ultimately Germanic even though it reached English through French. The original idea was always something slim, pointed, and quick to fly, and from that physical missile the verb sense grew: to dart is to move as swiftly and suddenly as a thrown spear. The sewing meaning, a small tapered fold stitched to shape fabric, borrows the same image of a narrow point. Because the spelling simply mirrors the short vowel and the hard final 't', dart is one of the easier words in the language to write, with no silent letters or doubled consonants to trip anyone up.

How the word is built

• dart (single root, from Old French dart: a throwing spear; no prefix or suffix)