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dollop

UK/ˈdɒləp/US/ˈdɑləp/
nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,835 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: dollops

A dollop is a shapeless lump of something soft. A dollop of cream, add a dollop, a generous dollop.

It is a cook's measurement meaning as much as comes off the spoon, which is imprecise on purpose. It suits cream, mashed potato and mustard, and it is affectionate. Figuratively a dollop of something means a helping of it. Note that the origin is dialect and uncertain.

Definitions of dollop

  1. 1noundollopA shapeless lump of something soft.B2+

    “She served the apple pie with a big dollop of cream on the side.”

dollop is a soft lump.

Also accepted in games: blob

Where it comes from

From an East Anglian dialect word meaning a tuft or patch, of unknown origin.

Built from

  • dallop · English — patch, tuft (of grass, etc.)

From earlier East Anglian dialectal dallop (“patch, tuft (of grass, etc.)”), of unknown origin. Compare dialectal Norwegian dolp (“lump”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

dollop in the wild

  • Eric Schlosser, author of Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market, provides "a much needed dollop of historical and political context".

    A/k/a Tommy Chong

  • The base is a brown meat stew called maraq, a dollop of fenugreek froth, and sahawiq (a mixture of chillies, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs ground into a salsa).

    Saltah

  • A dollop of hulbah is often dished out of the larger batch and added to hot soup.

    Hulbah

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.