dabble
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈdæb.əl/
ipa: [ˈdæb.l̩]
ipa: /ˈdæb.əl/
ipa: [ˈdæb.l̩]
ipa: [ˈdɛəb.l̩]
rhymes: -æbəl
Forms: form: dabbles
Etymology: From earlier dable, equivalent to dab + -le (frequentative suffix), possibly from Middle Dutch dabbelen (“to pinch; knead; to fumble; to dabble”); cognate with Icelandic dafla (“to dabble”).
Senses: examples: text: Sir W. Rose has works that bear painful evidence of failing health; indeed, his group of the Duc et Duchesse d'Aumale (705), with the Prince de Condé and the Duc de Guise, is quite unfinished and even blotted. The face of the Duke is refined, but weak; the colour is pale, and the background only a dabble of unarranged and undrilled touches.
ref: 1858 May 22, “Fine Arts. Royal Academy.”, in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama, number 1595, London: Printed by James Holmes, Took's Court, Chancery Lane, published at the office, 20, Wellington Street North, Strand, by J[ohn] Francis. [...], →OCLC, page 663, column 3:
text: And then methought my dream changed, and two Great Giants with heading-axes came striding over the bed, […] And I woke up with my hair all in a dabble with the night-dews, with my Grandmother's voice ringing in my ears, "Remember the Thirtieth of January!"
ref: 1862 February, George Augustus [Henry] Sala, “The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous; a Narrative in Plain English, […] Chapter the Fourth. My Grandmother Dies, and I am Left Alone, without So Much as a Name.”, in George Augustus Sala, editor, Temple Bar: A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, volume IV, London: Office of "Temple Bar," 122 Fleet Street; Ward and Lock, 158 Fleet Street; New York, N.Y.: Willmer and Rogers, →OCLC, page 304:
text: Opening the scullery door, I heard a slight scuffle. Then I saw dabbles of milk all over the floor and tiny rabbit-droppings in the saucers. And there the miscreant, the tips of his ears showing behind a pair of boots. I peeped at him. He sat bright-eyed and askance, twitching his nose and looking at me while not looking at me.
ref: a. 1931 (date written), D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “[Nature and Poetical Pieces.] Adolf.”, in Edward D[avid] McDonald, editor, Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence, London: William Heinemann, published 1936, →OCLC, page 9:
text: The lighting in the corridor just dabbles of arcs, afterthoughts, smears. The light a grime that gives him a slight headache. The same type as when it has rained, remained humid, a fetid stale of ozone over everything.
ref: 2007, Constantine Sult, chapter 1, in The Murder of Linen, [United States]: Brown Paper Publishing, page 1:
glosses: A spattering or sprinkling of a liquid.
examples: text: Happily, however, he [the gnat] is born a swimmer and can take his pleasure in his native element, poising himself near its surface head downwards, tail upwards. Why chooses he this strange position? Just for the same reason that we rather prefer, when taking a dabble in the waves, to have our heads above water, for the convenience, namely, of receiving a due supply of air, which the little swimmer in question sucks in through a sort of tube in his tail.
ref: 1849, Acheta Domestica [pseudonym; L. M. Budgen], “The Gnat.—A Life of Buoyancy.”, in Episodes of Insect Life, London: Reeve, Benham, and Reeve, King William Street, Strand, →OCLC, page 63:
text: After a dabble in a teaspoonful of water, and a scrape with a bit of an old sack, in a box, which is dignified with the title of "wash room"—for the American cars are, as it were, moveable hotels, with every accommodation complete (including what, I think, from a sanitary point of view, had very much better not be there), I took a walk up and down the train, with the rest of my fellow-passengers, and thereby improved my appetite for the breakfast which we were to take at a station down the road.
ref: 1865, George Tuthill Borrett, “Cleveland to Chicago”, in Letters from Canada and the United States, London: Printed for private circulation, by J. E. Adlard, Bartholomew Close, →OCLC, page 78:
glosses: An act of splashing in soft mud, water, etc.
examples: text: […] I was induced to quit Leeds ſooner than uſual, as the concourſe of company which would aſſemble on that occaſion was expected to be very numerous and productive, and of courſe I could not idly let ſlip ſuch a lucrative proſpect but muſt have a dabble for the loaves and fiſhes.
ref: 1795, Tate Wilkinson, Samuel Foote, The Wandering Patentee; or, A History of the Yorkshire Theatres, from 1779 to the Present Time: Interspersed with Anecdotes Respecting Most of the Performers in the Three Kingdoms, from 1765 to 1795. … In Four Volumes. To which are Added, Never Published, the Diversions of the Morning, and Foote’s Trial for a Libel on Peter Paragraph. Written by the late Samuel Foote, Esq., volume III, York, Yorkshire: Printed for the author, by Wilson, Spence, and Mawman; sold by G. G. & J. Robinson, Paternoster Row; T[homas] Egerton, Whitehall; and J. Deighton, Holborn, London; and by all the booksellers in the city and county of York, →OCLC, page 235:
text: From the separate little tracts and fragments which we have last noticed, (as well as the greater works, which contain a fuller development of his views on this subject,) it appears he slighted what has been termed Natural Theology. He was content with the Bible, without which Natural Theology is a dabble of inconclusive presumptions, and in connexion with which, however pleasing as a speculative inquiry, useless as a canon of faith, or a rule of life.
ref: 1837, [Francis] Bacon, “Introductory Essay”, in The Works of Lord Bacon. With an Introductory Essay, and a Portrait. In Two Volumes, volume I, London: William Ball, Paternoster Row; stereotyped and printed by J. R. and C. Child, Bungay, →OCLC, page xli:
text: A dabble in the stocks does not always turn out profitably; cotton is sometimes heavy on our hands, and real estate will sulkily retrograde, when, by the calculation, it ought to have advanced.
ref: 1845, Joseph C. Neal, “The Moral of Goslyne Greene, who was Born to a Fortune”, in The Gift: A Christmas, New Year, and Birthday Present, Philadelphia, Pa.: Carey and Hart, →OCLC, page 68:
glosses: An act of participation in an activity in a casual or superficial way.
Derived terms: double dabble