dabbled

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dab·ble

(dăb′əl)

v. dab·bled, dab·bling, dab·bles

v.tr.

To splash or spatter with or as if with a liquid: "The moon hung over the harbor dabbling the waves with gold" (Katherine Mansfield).

v.intr.

1. To splash liquid gently and playfully.

2. To undertake something superficially or without serious intent: "The restaurant business entails more than ... dabbling in interior design" (Andy Birsh).

3. To feed by moving the bill back and forth just below the surface or on the bottom in shallow water. Used of ducks.

[Possibly from Dutch dabbelen, frequentative of dabben, to strike, tap.]

dab′bler n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Adj.

dabbled - covered with bright patches (often used in combination); "waves dabbled with moonlight"; "a blood-spattered room"; "gardens splashed with color"; "kitchen walls splattered with grease"

spattered, splattered, splashed

covered - overlaid or spread or topped with or enclosed within something; sometimes used as a combining form; "women with covered faces"; "covered wagons"; "a covered balcony"

References in classic literature ?

Here long ago the girls of Sou, the darlings of the King, Dabbled their shining skirts with dew from the gracious blooms of Spring.

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Pontellier had brought her sketching materials, which she sometimes dabbled with in an unprofessional way.

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The truth is, I never dabbled in flashy matters, but jogged on in the good old sober routine of the calling -- a calling in which I should, no doubt, have remained to the present hour, but for a little accident which happened to me in the prosecution of one of the usual business operations of the profession.

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You dabbled in nasty mud, and made pies, when you were a child; and you dabble in nasty science, and dissect spiders, and spoil flowers, when you grow up.

Franklin's universal genius, dabbling in everything, dabbled in what he called "decorative painting." He had invented, he informed us, a new mixture to moisten paint with, which he described as a "vehicle." What it was made of, I don't know.

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One hand was almost severed at the wrist and his silvery hair was dabbled in blood.

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His vesture was dabbled in blood--and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

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He moved in the most intellectual circles: he read Browning with enthusiasm and turned up his well-shaped nose at Tennyson; he knew all the details of Shelley's treatment of Harriet; he dabbled in the history of art (on the walls of his rooms were reproductions of pictures by G.

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He dabbled in little things at first--"stalling for time," as he explained it to Holdsworthy, a friend he had made at the Alta-Pacific Club.

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Then, while Billy wandered in a vain search for abalones, Saxon lay and dabbled in the crystal-clear water of a roak-pool, dipping up handfuls of glistening jewels--ground bits of shell and pebble of flashing rose and blue and green and violet.

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'Will you believe me when I say it's the delight of my life to have dabbled in poetry, when I think I've exercised my pen upon this charming theme?

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He dabbled in chemistry, down in the horrid under-water vaults of the palace; and he wanted to show me some of his experiments.