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dao.

Any of various traditional Chinese swords with a curved, single-edged blade, primarily used for slashing and chopping.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/daʊ/
  1. Any of various traditional Chinese swords with a curved, single-edged blade, primarily used for slashing and chopping.

Where this word comes from

From Chinese 刀 (dāo, literally “single-edged blade”). Possibly a doublet of dah.

noun/daʊ/
  1. Synonym of circuit: various administrative divisions of imperial and early Republican China.

    historical · uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

From the pinyin romanization of Chinese 道 (Dào, literally “the Way”) or (dào, "circuit").

noun/daʊ/
  1. A sword and construction tool of the Naga people of India, which has a wooden hilt and grows wider from the narrow hilt to the wide, flat tip.

Where this word comes from

Likely related to one of the preceding words ("Chinese sword", "Burmese knife") or from Indo-Aryan. Compare Bengali দাও (daō).

noun/daʊ/
  1. Dracontomelon dao; a large tree of the family Anacardiaceae; the argus pheasant tree.

  2. The hard strong wood of the dao used for veneers and cabinetwork.

Where this word comes from

From Tagalog or Cebuano dao.

name/daʊ/
  1. Alternative form of Tao: the way of nature and/or the ideal way to live one's life.

    Chinese · alt-of · alternative
Where this word comes from

From the pinyin romanization of Chinese 道 (Dào, literally “the Way”) or (dào, "circuit").

noun/daʊ/
  1. Alternative form of dah (“Burmese knife or sword”).

    alt-of · alternative
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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.