dabbling

Verb

dabble (third-person singular simple present dabbles, present participle dabbling, simple past and past participle dabbled)

1. (transitive) To make slightly wet or soiled by spattering or sprinkling a liquid (such as water, mud, or paint) on it; to bedabble.
   • The Itelians […] reſpectleſſe of gentry, of few words, for they barrell up commonly more then they can broach, and ſo may be ſaid to be like a great bottle with a narrow necke; yet they are moſt cunning and circumſpect in negotiating, ſpecially when they have bin tampering with the Vine or the hop...1640, I. H. [i.e., James Howell], “A Character of Itelia”, in ΔΕΝΔΡΟΛΟΓΊΑ [DENDROLOGIA]. Dodona’s Grove, or, The Vocall Forrest, London: […] T[homas] B[adger] for H. Mosley [i.e., Humphrey Moseley]...

   Synonyms:

   bespatter, besprinkle, spatter

2. (transitive) To cause splashing by moving a body part like a bill or limb in soft mud, water, etc., often playfully; to play in shallow water; to paddle.
   • The children sat on the dock and dabbled their feet in the water.
3. (intransitive) To feed without diving, by submerging the head and neck underwater to seek food, often also tipping up the tail straight upwards above the water.
   • When a duck dabbles its bill in mud, it is using the lamellae (transverse plates) on the inner edges of its bill as a highly efficient filter. As the duck dabbles, its tongue acts as a piston, sucking water or mud into the mouth and driving it out again. Only the edible particles are left behind on...2002, Maurice Burton, Robert Burton, “Mallard”, in International Wildlife Encyclopedia, 3rd edition, volumes 11 (LEO–MAR), Tarrytown, N.Y.: Marshall Cavendish, →ISBN, page 1525
4. (figuratively, intransitive) To participate or have an interest in an activity in a casual or superficial way.
   • She’s an actress by trade, but has been known to dabble in poetry.
5. (intransitive, obsolete) To interfere or meddle in; to tamper with.
   • [A fellow of a college in Cambridge] freely confeſs'd, that he had for many Years been ranſacking Antiquity, in order to be the Author of ſome new Heresy or Opinion; and that after all his Searches, he cou'd think or fix upon nothing, but what on Fool or another had been meddling and dabbling with.1731, Simon Scriblerus [pseudonym], Whistoneutes: Or, Remarks on Mr. [William] Whiston’s Historical Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Samuel Clarke, &c., London: Printed for T. Warner, at the Black-Boy in...

See all 8 meanings of dabble