dabble.
To make slightly wet or soiled by spattering or sprinkling a liquid (such as water, mud, or paint) on it; to bedabble.
Meaning & usage
To make slightly wet or soiled by spattering or sprinkling a liquid (such as water, mud, or paint) on it; to bedabble.
To cause splashing by moving a body part like a bill or limb in soft mud, water, etc., often playfully; to play in shallow water; to paddle.
The children sat on the dock and dabbled their feet in the water.
To feed without diving, by submerging the head and neck underwater to seek food, often also tipping up the tail straight upwards above the water.
To participate or have an interest in an activity in a casual or superficial way.
She’s an actress by trade, but has been known to dabble in poetry.
To interfere or meddle in; to tamper with.
Where this word comes from
From earlier dable, equivalent to dab + -le (frequentative suffix), possibly from Middle Dutch dabbelen (“to pinch; knead; to fumble; to dabble”); cognate with Icelandic dafla (“to dabble”).
A spattering or sprinkling of a liquid.
An act of splashing in soft mud, water, etc.
An act of participation in an activity in a casual or superficial way.
Where this word comes from
From earlier dable, equivalent to dab + -le (frequentative suffix), possibly from Middle Dutch dabbelen (“to pinch; knead; to fumble; to dabble”); cognate with Icelandic dafla (“to dabble”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.