dab
/dæb/
dab verb: to press lightly in a repetitive motion with a soft object without rubbing.
Verb
dab (third-person singular simple present dabs, present participle dabbing, simple past and past participle dabbed)
- To press lightly in a repetitive motion with a soft object without rubbing.
- I dabbed my face with a towel.
- Dab the tears from your eyes.
- To apply a substance in this way.
- The nurse will dab some ointment on that gash.
- To strike by a thrust; to hit with a sudden blow or thrust.
- to dabbe him in the necke1532-1533, Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer
- Breach hit a line, Zoe Harrison dabbed a kick in behind and Abby Dow chased like fury.2025 August 22, Mike Henson, “England open World Cup with 11-try win over USA”, in BBC Sport
- To apply hash oil to a heated surface for the purpose of efficient combustion.
- To perform the dab dance move; to move both arms, parallel with one's head, to either side of the body.
- Look, my bruddas don't dab, we just vossi bop2019, Stormzy, “Vossi Bop”
- Synonym of daub (to mark a bingo card)
- Synonyms:
- daub
Noun (1)
dab (plural dabs)
- A soft tap or blow; a blow or peck from a bird's beak; an aimed blow.
- I promise you nothing,' said the dolls' dressmaker, dabbing two dabs at him with her needle, as if she put out both his eyes.1865, Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
- “It was the most absurd kiss. I don't believe he'd ever kissed a woman in his life before. I threw my head back, and it was a sort of slidy, pecking dab, just on the end of the chin — here.” Mrs. Hauksbee tapped her masculine little chin with her fan.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 42
- A soft, playful box given in greeting or approval.
- She gave a few more dabs to his buttocks. “There. By the time you've made love to me those weals will have dried up.”2006, Greta X, Angela Pearson, Whipsdom, page 75
- The men gave each other dabs and another bear hug.2010, Adrianne Byrd, Body Heat, page 177
- A small amount, a blob of some soft or wet substance.
- a dab of glue
- A small amount of hash oil.
- Fingerprint.
- One had Glash's dabs on it and a half-inch of Macallan at the bottom.2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 132
- A hip hop dance move in which the dancer simultaneously drops the head while raising an arm, briefly resting their face in the elbow, as if sneezing into their elbow.
- A dabbler.
- Synonyms:
- amateur, dilettante
Adverb
dab (not comparable)
Noun (2)
dab (plural dabs)
- One who is skilful or proficient; an expert; an adept.
- for little Urchin as he is, he‘s ſuch a Dab at his Bow and Arrows‘ that ne‘re a Finsbury Archer of ‘em all can pretend to come near him.1691, John Dunton, editor, The Athenian Mercury, volume 4, number 3, London, Queſt[ion] 8, page 2, column 2
- Dab, c. expert exquiſite in Roguery a Rumdab, c. a very Dextrous fellow at fileing , thieving, Cheating, Sharping, sc. Heii a Dab at it, He is well vers'd in it.c. 1698, B. E., compiler, A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, London: W. Hawes, DA, page 53, column 1
- Synonyms:
- adept, ace, artist, buff, crackerjack, crack hand, dab hand, dabster, don hand, expert
Noun (3)
dab (plural dabs)
Adjective
dab (comparative more dab, superlative most dab)
- Bad.
- Business topics are discussed in a most peculiar style. One man takes the pipe from his mouth and says, "Bill made a doogheno hit this morning." "Jem," says another, to a man just entering, "you'll stand a top o' reeb?" "On," answers Jem, "I've had a trosseno tol, and have been doing dab."1851, Henry Mayhew, “Habits and Amusements of Costermongers”, in London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1, page 11
- One afternoon, arriving at his stall later than usual, I said, almost unknowingly, 'A doogheno or a dabheno?' Jo, who had often chaffed me for my awkward mimicking of coster language, didn't even look up from peeling his apple. 'Dab,' he said, with a little shake of his head.2012, Anthony Quinn, The Streets, →ISBN, page 33
- Synonyms:
- trosseno
Noun (4) capitalized: DAB
DAB
- Initialism of digital audio broadcasting.
Proper noun capitalized: DAB
DAB
- Initialism of Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (a pro-Beijing political party in the HKSAR).
dab meaning in Kannada
dab in Kannada
- ದಬ್
Examples of dab in a sentence
- Then the minute feet made feeble dabs, or stabs, at the atmosphere; the tiny fists doubled themselves and wandered to and fro as if in search of the enemy.1917, Robert Hichens, In the Wilderness:
- I step closer to Profit and draw in a deep, steadying breath while the brothers exchange dabs.2010, De'nesha Diamond, Hustlin' Divas, page 197:
- One excels at a plan or the title page, another works away at the body of the book, and the third is a dab at an index.1869 [1759], David Mather Masson, The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, The Globe Edition, London: Macmillan & Co., reprint of The...
- I hope he will like my answer; it is as good a one as I can write though nothing to his; Indeed I had always heard what a dab he was at a Love-letter.1790, Jane Austen, “A Collection of Letters”, in Love and Freindship ^([sic]) (manuscript), page 149; first published in J. R. Sanders...
Synonyms of dab
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of dab
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | dabs |
| present participle | dabbing |
| past participle | dabbed |
| past | dabbed |
| Noun | |
| plural | dabs |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more dab |
| superlative | most dab |
Origin of dab
From Middle English dabben (“to strike”), probably of North Germanic origin, related to Old Icelandic dabba (“to tap, slap”), perhaps ultimately imitative. Compare also with Middle Dutch dabben (“to pinch, knead, fumble, dabble”) (Dutch dabben (“(of a horse) to stamp with the forelegs”)), Dutch deppen (“to dab”), possibly German tappen (“to fumble, grope”). The noun is from Middle English dabbe (“a strike, blow”), from the verb. Related to tap. Compare also drub, dub. African-American sense of “playful box” perhaps influenced by dap (“fistbump”).
Unknown. First use in print was in 1691, in The Athenian Mercury; it is also found in the Dictionary of the Canting Crew of 1698; see quotations for both. Originally used in the cant of criminals, and later in school slang. It may be a profound alteration of adept, likely from deliberate slangy usage thereof (rather than natural sound-change), which if true would give such earlier forms as *adep (or *dept) > *dep > *deb.
Late Middle English dabbe, of unknown origin; perhaps related to sense 1 (“to press against lightly”) as in "a soft mass dabbed down."
Words formed from dab
Phrases with dab
Words that rhyme with dab
Questions about dab
- What does dab mean?
- Dab means to press lightly in a repetitive motion with a soft object without rubbing.
- What is dab in Kannada?
- Dab in Kannada is ದಬ್. See Dab meaning in Kannada.
- How do you use dab in a sentence?
- Then the minute feet made feeble dabs, or stabs, at the atmosphere; the tiny fists doubled themselves and wandered to and fro as if in search of the enemy.
- What part of speech is dab?
- Dab can be a verb, a noun, an adverb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce dab?
- Dab is pronounced /dæb/.
- What is the past tense of dab?
- The past tense of dab is dabbed.
Words near dab in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dab (page history and authors); DAB (page history and authors); dab (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dab.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.