dot

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small round mark or spot.

   From the plane, the houses looked like tiny dots.

2. 2
   verb

   To mark something with a dot, or to be scattered across an area like dots.

   Small villages dot the green hillsides.

3. 3
   noun

   One of the two basic signals in Morse code, the other being the dash.

   The letter S is three dots in Morse code.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Dot occurs once in Old English meaning “the head of a boil,” then disappears from surviving records until the late 16th century, when it meant a small lump or clot. The modern sense “small mark or spot” developed in the mid-17th century.

From Middle English *dot, dotte, from Old English dott (“a dot, point”), from Proto-West Germanic *dott, from Proto-Germanic *duttaz (“wisp”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Dot, Dotte (“a clump”), Dutch dot (“lump, knot, clod”), Low German Dutte (“a plug”), dialectal Swedish dott (“a little heap, bunch, clump”).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary