Darwinism 
2. Belief in and support of Darwin's theory. 
Also DiiririiiiiiiiiHiii. 
Darwinist (lUir'win-ist), . [< Itnnrin + -ist.~\ 
A believer in Darwinism; a Darwinian. 
Darwinistic (iliir-wi-nis'tik), a. [< D/trtchiixt 
+ -ir. J Saino as DnnriiiiitH. 
Darwinize (iliir'win-i/), r. i. ; pret. and pp. 
Jltiririnizetl, ppr. ]>nririnr:iiii/. [< Dartriit + 
-in:] To accept the biological theories of 
Charles Darwin. 
Tlir last word i if the scientific theory of evolution i* 
that very terrifying word, anarchy, so eloquently anathc 
nmti/eil "ex ratllrilra ' liy Itiirn'iiti :iu'i sodologiata anil 
o many others. Contemporary Ken., L. \X\. 
darwish, . See dervish. 
Dascillidae (da-siri-de), . pi. [NL., < Jiam-il- 
IH.I + -iiltr.'] A family of serricom pentamer- 
ous beetles, typified by the genus l>a.irill>m. 
They have the vvntril ngnwnti free, the first of wliich is 
not elongate ; the hea.l imt ronstrirti'il behind; the eyes 
granulated ; tin- mesothoraclc epimera reaching the coxa. 1 , 
of which tho front pair Is transverse and the hind pair 
silicate for rreeplion of Itic frin. ira ; and the tarai 5-joint- 
ed. Same as t',/i,li:mnl<i'. 
Dascillus (do-sil'us), n. [NL., < Gr. MmaUor, 
the name of a fish; cf. AIOTWOC, thick-shaded, 
bushy, < tin-, an intensive pre- 
fix, + ana, shade, shadow.] 1. 
The typical genus of beetles of 
the family Jlnsrillidii: I>. cer- 
vinus is an example. Also Da- 
ncylitx. Latrcille, 1796. 2. In 
tenth., a genus of pomacentroid 
fishes. Also Dascy Hits. I'urirr, 
1829. Also called Tetradrach- 
iii n i. 
daset, dasewet, ' See daze. Da, c ui*, rt,,.. 
dash (dash), r. [< ME. dasch- < Linc "jgj 1 , Iultural 
en, dassen, rush with violence, 
strike with violence, < Dan. daste = Sw. daska, 
slap, strike, beat. Cf. dusk.] I. trans. If. To 
strike suddenly and violently; give a sudden 
blow to. 
With that she dash'd her on the lips, 
So dyed double red. 
Hani was the heart that gave that blow, 
Soft wore tho lips that tiled. 
Warner, Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond. 
2. To cause to strike suddenly and with vio- 
lence ; throw or thrust violently or suddenly : 
as, to dash one stone against another ; to dash 
water on the face. 
They shall bear thec up, lest at any time thou dash thy 
foot against a stone. Mat. iv. tt. 
A foot more light, a step more true, 
Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew. 
Scott, L. of the L., I. 18. 
3. To break by collision or by strokes ; shatter. 
Kt'i >i er lie departed his aheilde was all to daisht. that 
the tlirldde part ne left not hooll, and his haulierke dis- 
nmylcd and his helme perced. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), Hi. 443. 
A brave vessel . . . 
Daiih'il all to pieces. Shak. , Tempest, I. 2. 
4. To scatter or sprinkle something over; be- 
spatter; sprinkle; splash; suffuse. 
Vast basins of marble dashed with perpetual cascades. 
Walpole, Modern Gardening. 
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 
Of onset. Tennyson, Mortc d' Arthur. 
Dashed with blushes for her slighted love. 
Addition, tr. of Ovid'a Metamorph. 
5. To place, moke, mark, sketch, etc., in a hasty 
manner. 
Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest. 
Tennyson, Princess, v. 
6. To throw something into so as to produce a 
mixture ; mingle ; mix ; adulterate : as, to dash 
wine with water ; the story is dashed with fa- 
bles; to rfa.s'A fire-damp with pure air (said in 
coal-mining: see dadP). 
Learn to know the great desire that hypocrites have to 
Iht.l one craft or other to dash the truth with. 
Tiiiulatf, An. to. sir T. More, etc. (Parker Soe., 1850), p. 282. 
tic hail unit up whir sn heavily dash'd that those poor 
men i if therity who were not so much accustomed to drink 
as those of his retinue were extremely intoxicated. 
f'::ili-til Ilifit. itf FmnruHi. 
Notable virtues are smni'timrs iluxlh'il with notorious 
vices. Sir '/'. nrairne, Christ. Mor., I. 28. 
His cheerfulness [ls| dashed with apprehension. 
Goldsmith, The Bee, No. 1. 
7. To cast down ; thrust out or aside; impede; 
frustrate; abate; lower. 
1 see, this hath a little dash'd your spirits. 
SAa*., Othello, iii. :i. 
What hick is this, that our revels are dashed ! 
R. Jitnuon, Cynthia's Revels, iv. 1. 
<'inild make the worse appear 
The better reason, td perplex and iln--li 
Matiiivst i -nimsels. .VHtnn, P. L., II. 114. 
8. To confound; confuse; put to shame; abash: 
as, he was daubed at the appearance of the judge. 
1459 
Dank the proud gamester In his glided car. 
l-njir, Imlt. of Horace, II. I. 107. 
To dash in, to paint or write rapidly: aa, to dash in the 
color or tbi' ill-tails. To dash off, to form or aketrh mil 
hastily ; write with great rapidity : as, to dank o/*an arti- 
cle fi.r a newapajicr. To dash out. <<i) To knock out by 
dashing against >niethhm : as, to <\n*h ut ow'ii brains 
against a wall, (b) To erase at a stroke ; strike out ; blot 
out or obliterate : as, to dnxh out a line or a word, (c) To 
strike out or form at a blow ; produce suddenly. 
Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit, 
A fool so just a copy of a wit ; 
So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore, 
A wit it was, and called tin- phantom Mm--. 
/'"/, Him. hi. I, II. 47. 
= Syn. Dash Smash, Shatter, Shiver, Crush, Math. That 
bii-h is dashed does n<it necessarily go to pieces : if it is 
iinikrn, the fact Is commonly expressed. That which is 
smashed, shattered, or shivered is dashed to pieces sud- 
denly, w ith violence, at a hlow or in a collision. .Sm.-/,- 
ing is the roughest and most violent of the three acts ; 
the word expresses the most complete disruption or ruin : 
as, the drunken aoldier smashed (shattered, thirerett) the 
mirror with the butt of hU muaket. The use of smash or 
mash for crush (as, his head was smashed, I ;mf.sA/ m> 
finger) is colloquial. Shatter and shiver differ In that shat- 
ter suggests rather the flying of the parts, and sh'ivr the 
breaking of the substance ; and the pieces are more nu- 
merous or smaller with shiver. That which ia mislinl or 
masheit ia broken down under pressure ; that which is 
mashed becomes a shapeless mass : sugar and rock are 
crushed Into powder, small particles, or bits ; apples are 
crushed or mashed into pulp In making cider ; lioiled po- 
tatoes are mashed, not crushed, in preparing them for the 
table. 
They that aland high have many blasts to shake them ; 
And, if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces. 
Shak., Rich. III., 1. 3. 
A voice cried aloud, "Ay, ay, divil, all's raight! We've 
smashed 'em" [machines]. Charlotte Bronte, Shirley, II. 
You may break, yon may shatter the vase if yon will, 
But the scent of the roses will hang round it .-till. 
Moore, Farewell ! but whenever, etc. 
All the ground 
With shivr'd armour strown. 
Milton, P. L, vl. S89. 
The ostrich . . . leaveth her eggs in the earth . . . and 
forgetteth that the foot may crush them. Job xxxix. 13 -15. 
To break the claw of a crab or a lobster, clap it Iwtween 
the sides of the dining-room door ; . . . thus you can do 
it gradually without mashing the meat. 
Strift, Advice to Servants, The Footman. 
II. intrans. 1. To rush with violence; move 
rapidly and vehemently. 
All the long-pent stream of life 
Dash'd downward in a cataract. 
Tennyson, Day-Dream, The Revival. 
On the 4th his [Johnston's] cavalry dashed down and 
captured a small picket-guard of six or seven men. 
U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, I. 333. 
2. To use rapidity in performance, so as to dis- 
play force seemingly without care, as in paint- 
ing or writing. 
With Just, hold lines he dashes here and there, 
Showing great mastery with little care. 
Rochester, Allusion to Horace. 
dash (dash), n. [< dash, r.] 1. A violent 
striking together of two bodies; collision. 
The dash of clouds. Thomson, Summer, 1. 1114. 
2. A sudden check ; frustration ; abashment : 
as, his hopes met with a dash. 
Though it were Knox himself, the Reformer of a King- 
dom, that spake it, they will not pardon him their dash. 
Milton, Areopagitica, p. 32. 
3. An impetuous movement; a quick stroke or 
blow ; a sudden onset : as, t make a dash upon 
the enemy. 
This jumping upon things at flrst dash will destroy all. 
Seldtn, Table-Talk, p. 23. 
The dash of the brook from the alder-glen. 
Bryant, Two Graves. 
I feared it was possible that (the enemy] might make a 
rapid dash upon Crump's and destroy our transports and 
stores. 17. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, I. 334. 
4. A small infusion or admixture ; something 
mingled with something else, especially to 
qualify or adulterate it: as, the wine has a iluxh 
of water. 
Innocence when it has in it a dash of folly. 
Addison, Spectator, No. 245. 
A morose ruffian with a dash of the pirate In him. 
Emerson, Compensation. 
5. The capacity for unhesitating, prompt ac- 
tion, as against an enemy; vigor in attack: as, 
the corps was distinguished for dash. 
The hunting of Taher Sherrif and his brothers was su- 
perlatively beautiful : with an immense amount of dash 
then' was a cool, sportsman-like manner in their mode of 
attack. Str S. W. BaJcer, Heart of Africa, p. 1:17. 
Their troops outnumbered ours more than two to one, 
and fought with considerable dash. 
A". A. Xer., CXLIII. 46. 
6. A flourish ; an ostentatious parade. 
she was a flrst-rate ship, the old Vii-tor was. tlnvtiRh I 
supposr she wouldn't rut much of a ifrrx/i now lonyrida of 
some of the new clippers. S. O. Jruxtt, Deephavcn, p. 154. 
dasher 
7. () In irrilin;/ inul /ii-iiiliiii/, a horizontal 
stroke or line of varying length, used as a niiirk 
of punctuation and for other purposes; HJM-- 
eilieally, \iiprintiaii, a type the face of whieh 
consists of such a line. Tb .*i,. s ,, t ,,iaiiy fur- 
nisbi-il in a font of type are called i . j.. . tu. l\ t ! > . 
( , a square of the sue of the fonti, tin- m 2ul ( , hall a 
square), the two-em dash ( , two squares), ami the three. 
em dash ( , three squares). In pmutnatiuti, tlir i n. 
dash is used to note a sudden tnin.-ith.n ..r Uvak uf . on- 
tinuity in a sentence, more marked than that indicated by 
a comma, and also at the beginning and end of a parcn- 
tli.tiial clause properly of one more directly n-lat.il 
to the general aenae than a true parenthesii. (See paren- 
thrfm.) The em or the en dash Is often ued to Indicate the 
omission of tin: intermediate terms of a series which are 
to be supplied in reading, being thus ..it. n equivalent to 
"to. . . .inclusive": thus, Mnrk iv. :) ai, or 8-2n(that 
b, verses S to HO, inclusive) ; the yean 1SSO- s(that is, 1880 
to 1888). As a mark of hiatus or suppression, the dash 
usually one of the longer ones stands for sometbinu omit- 
ted, as a name or part of a name, the concluding words of 
an nn finished sentence, or the connecting words of a series 
of broken sentences. Various other more or less arbitrary 
uaea are made of dashes, as In place of do. (ditto) to Indi- 
cate repetition of names in a catalogue or the like, a* a 
dividing line between sections, articles, or other portions 
of matter, etc. 
Observe well the daih too, at the end of this Name. 
Wycherley, Plain Dealer, T. 1. 
(b) In printing, also, a line (variously modified 
in form) used for the separation of distinct por- 
tions of matter, as the parallel dash (_ ), 
the double dash (^^^s), the diamond or swell 
dash ( ^ ), etc. (c) Any short mark or line. 
8. In music: (a) The short stroke placed 
over or under a note by which a staccato effect 
is indicated. See staccato, (b) The line or 
stroke drawn through a figure in thorough- 
bass which indicates that the tone signified 
by the figure is to be chromatically raised a 
semitone, (c) In harpsichord-music, a cou!6 
(which see). 9. In zotil., a longitudinal mark, 
generally rounded and clearly defined at one 
end, and tapering or gradually becoming indis- 
tinct at the other, as if produced by a drop of 
colored liquid dashed obliquely against the sur- 
face, or by tho rough stroke of a pen. Such 
marks are very common on the wings of the 
Lepidojitera. 10. A present made by a trader 
to a chief on the western coast of Africa to 
secure permission to traffic with the natives. 
11. Same as dash-board. 12. In sjiorting, a 
short race decided in one attempt, not in heats: 
as, a hundred-yard dash To cut a dash. See mt, r. 
dash-board (dash'bord), n. 1. A board or 
leathern apron placed on the fore part of a 
chaise, gig, or other vehicle, to prevent water, 
mud, etc., from being thrown upon those in the 
vehicle by the heels of the horses. 2. The 
float of a paddle-wheel. 3. A screen placed 
at the bow of a steam-launch to throw off the 
spray: a spray-board. 
dashed (dasht), a. [< dash + -72.] 1. Com- 
posed of, inclosed by, or abounding with dashes : 
as, a dashed line; a dashed clause; a dashed 
poem. 2. Abashed; confused. See dash, v., 8. 
Before her you looked dashetl, and kept bowing to the 
ground, and talked, for all the world, aa if you were before 
a justice of peace. (Juldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, ill. 
3. A euphemism for damned, from the form 
d d, often used to represent that word, 
dasher (dash'fer), n. 1 . One who or that which 
dashes or agitates, as the float of a paddle- 
wheel, the plunger of a churn, and the like. 
2. A dash-board. 3. One who makes an os- 
tentatious parade ; a bold, showy, ostentatious 
man or woman. [Colloq.] 
She was astonished to And in high life a degree of vul- 
garity of which her country companions would have been 
ashamed ; but all such things in high life go under the 
general term dashing. These young ladies were dashers. 
Alas ! perhaps foreigners and future generations may not 
know the meaning of the term. 
Miss Edgcmrth, Ainu ria. p. 282. 
Dashers ! who once a mouth assemble, 
Make creditors and coachmen tremble. 
And dress'd In colours vastly One, 
Drive to some public-house to dine. 
(T. Combe, Dr. Syntax's Tours, 1. 18. 
;. ]>. :, T ' : - . 
