dot 
dot, "a little bundle of spoiled wool, thread 
silk or such like, which is good for nothing" 
(Sewel), = East Fries, dotte, dot, a clump, Fries. 
dodd, a clump, = Sw. dial, dott, a little heap, 
clump. Hence dottle; also (< AS. dott) AS. 
dyttan, E. dit 1 , stop up, plug.] A point or mi- 
nute spot on a surface; a small spot of dif- 
ferent color, opacity, or material from that of 
the surface on which it is situated. 
Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn. 
Tennyson, Morte d'Arthur. 
Specifically (a) A small spot introduced in the variega- 
tion of cloth : as, polka dots in women's dress-fabrics. 
(6) In writing and printing, a minute round spot serving 
(1) as a customary distinction, as the dot over the body 
of i and j and formerly of y, or (2) as a special diacritic, 
as the dots of '&, a, a, etc., in the notation of pronuncia- 
tion used in this dictionary, or the vowel-signs or points 
in Hebrew and Arabic, or (3) as a mark of punctuation, as 
the period, which consists of one dot, and the colon, which 
consists of two dots. 
The dot on the letter [i] came into fashion in the 14th 
century. Encyc. Brit., XVIII. 161. 
(c) In musical notation : (1) A point placed after a note 
or rest, to indicate that the duration of the note or rest is 
to be increased one half. A double dot further increases 
the duration by one half the value of the single dot : 
(2) A point placed over or under a note, to indicate that 
the note is to be performed somewhat staccato (which see); 
but in old music, when several dots are placed over a long 
note, they indicate that it is to be subdivided into as many 
short notes : 
(3) When placed in the spaces of a staff with a heavy or 
double bar, dots indicate the beginning or end of a repeat 
(which see), (d) In embroidery, and in weaving imitating 
embroidery, a simple, small, round spot, especially when 
solid or opaque, on a thin and translucent ground. There 
are several kinds, distinguished chiefly by their size, as 
point de pois, point d'or, etc. (e) In plastering : (1) pi. 
Nails so driven into a wall that their heads are left pro- 
jecting a certain distance, thus forming a gage to show 
how thick the plaster should be laid on. (2) A patch of 
plaster put on to regulate the floating rule in making 
screeds and bays. 
dot 1 (dot), v. ; pret. and pp. dotted, ppr. dotting. 
[< dot 1 , n.] I. trans. 1. To mark with dots; 
make a dot or dots in or upon: as, to dot an i; 
to dot a surface. 
Some few places, which are here, and in other parts of 
the chart, distinguished by a dotted line. 
Cook, Voyages, II. ii. 7. 
2. To mark or diversify with small detached 
objects : as, a landscape dotted with cottages 
or clumps of trees. 
Dotting the fields of corn and vine, 
Like ghosts, the huge gnarl'd olives shine. 
M. Arnold. 
3. To place so as to appear like dots. 
All about were dotted leafy trees. 
William Morris, Earthly Paradise, I. 233. 
Dotted lino, a line of dots on a surface made for some 
specific purpose, as in a map, diagram, or drawing to mark 
an indefinite boundary, route, or outline, in printing to 
mark an omission or to guide the eye from one point to 
another, etc. Dotted manner (F. maniere cribUe), a sys- 
tem of engraving in dots, peculiar to the fifteenth cen- 
tury. When on metal plates the larger dots were proba- 
bly punched out of the metal and the smaller indented, 
but not to complete perforation. The work was either in 
relief or in intaglio, according to circumstances. When 
on wood the circular spots were cut out so as to reduce the 
surface of the blocks. Dotted metal plates were intended 
to serve as ornaments for book-covers and -corners, or for 
pieces of furniture, and their indented dots were filled 
with enamel. Before the enamel was put in the gold- 
smith was accustomed to rub off impressions upon paper 
with a burnisher ; and these impressions are known as 
prints in the dotted manner. Dotted note or rest, in 
musical notation, a note or rest with a dot after it. See 
dotl, n. (e)(l). Dotted Stitch. Same as dot-stitch. 
II. intrans. To make dots or spots To dot 
and carry, or cany one, etc., in performing addition, 
as in school, to set down the units of an added column 
and carry the tens to the next column. [In the extract 
used as a complex noun for the action.] 
The metre, too, was regular 
As schoolboy's dot and carry. 
Lowell, Origin of Didactic Poetry. 
To dot and go one, to waddle. Grose. [Prov. Eng.] 
dot 2 (dot), . [< F. dot = Pr. dot = Sp. Pg. dote 
= It. dote, data, < L. dos (dot-), dower: see dote 2 
(the prop. E. form, though now obsolete) and 
dower 2 .] In mod. civil law, dowry; property 
which the wife brings upon her marriage to the 
husband, the income of which is in his control 
for the expenses of the marital establishment, 
the principal remaining her separate property. 
1740 
It is either formally settled by a written instrument, or 
secured by expressing the marriage contract as under the 
dotal rule. 
The dos or dotal estate is something very different from 
our "dower." It has become the dot of French law, and 
is the favourite form of settling the property of married 
women all over the Continent of Europe. It is a contri- 
bution by the wife's family, or by the wife herself, in- 
tended to assist the husband in bearing the expenses of 
the conjugal household. Only the revenue belonged to 
the husband, and many minute rules . . . prevented him 
from spending it on objects foreign to the purpose of the 
settlement. The corpus or capital of the settled property 
was, among the Romans (as now in France), incapable of 
alienation, unless with the permission of a court of justice. 
Maine, Early Hist, of Institutions, p. 319. 
dotage (do'taj), w. [< ME. dotage; < dote 1 + 
-age.] 1. The state of one who dotes ; feeble- 
ness or imbecility of mind in old age ; second 
childhood; senility. 
This tree is olde anoon, and in his age 
He goothe oute of his kyude into dotage. 
Palladius, Husbondrie (E. E. T. S.), p. 91. 
From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, 
And Swift expires, a driveller and a show. 
Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes, 1. 317. 
2. Weak and foolish affection ; excessive fond- 
ness. 
Masit were our myndes & our mad hedis, 
And we in dotage full depe dreuyn, by faith, 
ffor the wille of a woman, & no whe ellis. 
Destruction of Troy (E. E. T. S.), 1. 9749. 
Nay, but this dotage of our general's 
O'erflows the measure. Shak., A. and C., i. 1. 
3. The folly imagined by one who is foolish 
and doting. [Rare.] 
These are the foolish and childish dotages of such igno- 
rant Barbarians. Hakluyt's Voyages, I. 254. 
Sure, some dotage 
Of living stately, richly, lends a cunning 
To eloquence. Ford, Fancies, i. 3. 
[People] must, as they thought, heighten and improve 
it [religion] till they had mixed with it the freaks of 
Enthusiasm, or the dotages of Superstition. 
Stillingfleet, Sermons, II. viii. 
dotal (do'tal), a. [< F. Pr. Sp. Pg. dotal = It. 
dotale, < L". dotalis, < dos (dot-), dower: see 
dot 2 .] Pertaining to dower, or a woman's 
marriage portion ; constituting dower, or com- 
prised in it. 
Shall I, of one poor dotal town possest, 
My people thin, my wretched country waste? 
Garth, tr. of Ovid's Metamorph., xiv. 
dotantt (do'tant), n. [< dote 1 + -ant 1 .] A do- 
tard. 
Can you . . . think to front his revenges . . . with the 
palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as you seem 
to be? Shak., Cor., v. 2. 
dotard (do'tard), n. and a. [Also dial, (in 3d 
sense) dottard; < ME. dotard ; < dote 1 + -ard.] 
1. n. 1. One who is in his dotage or second 
childhood; one whose intellect is impaired by 
age. 
And thoug this flaterynge freres wyln for her pride 
Disputen of this deyte as dotardes schulden, 
The more the matere is moved the [masedere hy] worthen. 
Piers Ploinman's Crede (E. E. T. S.), 1. 825. 
The nonsense of Herodotus is that of a baby. The non- 
sense of Xenophon is that of a dotard. 
Macaulay, History. 
2. One who is foolishly fond ; one who dotes. 
3. An aged, decaying tree. [Prov. Eng.] 
And for great trees, we see almost all overgrown trees, 
in church-yards, or near ancient buildings and the like, 
are pollards, or dotards, and not trees at their full height. 
Bacon, Nat. Hist., 586. 
II. a. 1. Doting; imbecile. 
The shaft of scorn that once had stung 
But wakes a dotard smile. 
Tennyson, Ancient Sage. 
2. Decayed, as a tree. [Prov. Eng.] 
Manie dottarde and decayde trees are within divers 
manners surveyde, which are contynuallie wrongfullie 
taken by the tenauntes. Lansdowne MS. (1613), 165. 
dotardly (do'tard-li), a. [< dotard + -ly 1 .] 
Like a dotard; weak. 
dotardy (do'tar-di), n. [< dotard + -y3.] The 
state of being a dotard. 
dotation (do-ta'shon), n. [= F. Pr. dotation 
= Sp. dotation = Pg. dotaySo = It. dotazione, < 
ML. dotatio(n-),<. L. dotare, endow, < dos (dot-), 
dower: see dot 2 .] 1. The act of endowing a 
woman with a marriage portion. 2. Endow- 
ment ; establishment of funds for the support 
of some institution. 
His dotation and glorious exaltation of the see of Rome. 
Bp. Ridley, in Bradford's Letters (Parker Soc., 1853), 
[II. 160. 
Sometimes these dotations were made by common as- 
sent of the people, without any corporation. 
R. W. Dixon, Hist. Church of Eng., ii. 
dotchin (doch'in), n. [A corruption, through 
the Cantonese, of Chinese toh, take up in the 
dote 
hand, + ching, weigh.] The name given in 
the south of China to the portable steelyard in 
use throughout China and the adjoining coun- 
tries. In the smaller kinds, used for weighing silver 
Dotchin, showing ingots of silver in the scale. 
(sycee), medicines, etc. , the beam is of ivory or bone ; in 
the larger ones, used in shops and for general marketing, 
it is of wood. Those in use in Hongkong are graduated 
for both English and Chinese weights. 
dote 1 (dot), v. ; pret. and pp. doted, ppr. doting. 
[Also doat; <. ME. dotien, doten, dote (not in 
AS.), = OD. doten, dote, mope, D. dutten, take 
a nap, mope (cf. dut, a nap, sleep, dotage), = 
Icel. dotta, nod from sleep (cf. dott, nodding, 
dottr, a nodder), = MHG. tuzen, keep still, 
mope. Cf. OF. redoter, F. radoter, rave, of 
LGr. origin.] I. intrans. If. To be stupid ; act 
like a fool. 
He wol maken him doten anon ryght. 
Chaucer, Prol. to Canon's Yeoman's Tale, 1. 430. 
Wise men will deme it we dote, 
But if we make ende of oure note. 
York Plays, p. 305. 
2. To be silly or weak-minded from age ; have 
the intellect impaired by age, so that the mind 
wanders or wavers. 
He dredes no dynt that dotes for elde. 
Alliterative Poems (ed. Morris), iii. 125. 
Time has made you dote, and vainly tell 
Of arms imagined in your lonely cell. Dryden. 
When an old Woman begins to doat, and grow charge- 
able to a Parish, she is generally turned into a Witch. 
Addison, Spectator, No. 117. 
Wilhelm, Count Berlifltzing, . . . was, at the epoch of 
this narrative, an infirm and doting old man. 
Pan, Tales, I. 476. 
3. To bestow excessive love ; lavish extrava- 
gant fondness or liking : with on or upon : as, 
to dote on a sweetheart ; he dotes upon oysters. 
Aholah . . . doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians. 
Ezek. xxiii. 5. 
No Man ever more loved, nor less doated upon a Wife 
than he [Henry IV.]. Baker, Chronicles, p. 166. 
Death all-eloquent ! you only prove 
What dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love. 
Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, 1. 336. 
4. To decay, as a tree. [Prov. Eng.] 
The seed of thorn in it wol dede and dote. 
Palladius, Husbondrie (E. E. T. S.), p. 28. 
n.t trans. To love to excess. 
Why wilt thou dote thyself 
Out of thy life? Hence, get thee to bed. 
Beau, and Fl., Maid's Tragedy, iii. 2. 
Why, know love doats the fates, 
Jove groanes beneath his waight. 
Marston, Sophonisba, v. 1. 
doteH (dot), n. [< ME. dote; < dote 1 , v.] 1. A 
dotard. 
Thou hast y-tint [lost] thi pride, 
Thou dote. 
Sir Tristrem, p. 109. 
2. A state of stupor ; dotage. 
Thus after as in a dote he hath tottered some space 
about, at last he falleth downe to dust. 
Boyd, Last Battell, p. 529. 
dote 2 t (dot), n. [< F. dot, < L. dos (dot-), dower: 
see dot 2 and dower.] 1. Same as dot 2 . 
In the article of his own marriage with the daughter of 
France, there is no mention of dote nor douaire. 
Wyatt, To Cromwell, April 12, 1540. 
2. pi. Natural gifts or endowments. 
I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of stich a 
servant. B. Jonson, Epicoene, ii. 2. 
As we assign to glorified bodies after the last resurrec- 
tion certain dotes (as we call them in the school), certain 
endowments, so labour thou to find those endowments in 
thy soul here. Donne, Sermons, xvii. 
Cor. Sing then, and shew these goodly dotes in thee, 
With which thy brainless youth can equal me. 
Men. The dotes, old dotard, I can bring to prove 
Myself deserv's that choice, are onely love. 
R. B.'s Continuation of Sidney's Arcadia, p. 516. 
dote 2 t (dot), v. t. [< F. doter, < L. dotare, endow: 
see rfow 4 .] To endow ; give as endowment. 
