Other forms: dashed, dashing, dashes
A dash is a very small amount of something liquid or powdery, thrown in quickly rather than measured. A dash of milk in your tea, a dash of vinegar on chips, a dash of salt in the flour.
That kitchen sense is the smallest one. A dash is also a short fast run — a dash for the bus, the hundred-metre dash — and as a verb, to dash is to run: I dashed out without my keys. Older and rougher is dashing something against a wall, smashing it, and that survives in dashed hopes, hopes broken all at once. In writing, a dash is the long line — like this one — that holds a thought apart, and in Morse code it is the long signal beside the dot. The adjective dashing means stylish and confident, and it is on its way out.
1noundashA very small amount of a liquid or powder added to food.
“Add a dash of cream right at the end.”
Patterna dash of + liquid (milk, vinegar, lemon) · add a dash · a dash of colour
2nounshortA short, quick run.
“We made a dash for the door the moment the rain eased.”
3verbsomewhereTo run somewhere quickly.
“She dashed across the road before the lights changed.”
4verbthrowTo throw or strike something violently so that it breaks.
“The waves dashed the little boat against the rocks.”
5verbdestroyTo destroy somebody's hopes suddenly.
“The result dashed any hope of promotion.”
6nounpunctuationThe punctuation mark, used to set a phrase apart from the rest of a sentence.
“Put a dash before the last clause instead of a comma.”
DASH → a quick run of milk into the tea
A dash is a quick run; a dash of milk is milk that runs into the tea for only a moment.
Dash starts as a smack. Middle English daschen comes from Danish daske, to slap or strike, a cousin of Swedish daska, to smack or spank, and the trail goes cold before that. You can still hear the blow in dashing a glass to the floor, and it has thinned all the way down to the dash of milk you slop into a cup.
Danish
daske — to slap, strike
Middle English
daschen
English, today
dash
From Middle English daschen, dassen, from Danish daske (“to slap, strike”), related to Swedish daska (“to smack, slap, spank”), of obscure origin. Compare German tatschen (“to grope, paw”), Old English dwǣsċan (“to quell, put out, destroy, extinguish”). See also dush.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA