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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

dart.

A pointed missile weapon, intended to be thrown by the hand; for example, a short lance or javelin.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dɑːt/Received-Pronunciation/dɑɹt/General-American[daɹt̚][daɹɾ̥]
  1. A pointed missile weapon, intended to be thrown by the hand; for example, a short lance or javelin.

  2. Any sharp-pointed missile weapon, such as an arrow.

  3. Anything resembling such a missile; something that pierces or wounds like such a weapon.

    figuratively · sometimes
  4. A small object with a pointed tip at one end and feathers at the other, which is thrown at a target in the game of darts.

  5. A concave quadrilateral similar in shape to a chevron or arrowhead.

  6. A cigarette.

    Australia · Canada · colloquial
  7. A dart-shaped target towed behind an aircraft to train shooters.

  8. A plan or scheme.

    Australia · obsolete
  9. A sudden or fast movement.

    Soon as I felt the floor tremor I made a dart for the door.
  10. A fold that is stitched on a garment.

  11. A dace (fish) (Leuciscus leuciscus).

  12. Any of various species of hesperiid butterfly.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰerh₃- Proto-Indo-European *dʰórh₃-eh₂ Proto-Germanic *darō Proto-Germanic *-ōþuz Proto-Germanic *darōþuz Frankish *darōþubor. Medieval Latin dardus Old French dartbor. Middle English dart English dart From Middle English dart, from Old French dart, dard (“dart”), from Medieval Latin dardus, from Frankish *darōþu (“dart, spear”), from Proto-Germanic *darōþuz (“dart, spear”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerh₃- (“to leap, spring”). Compare Old High German tart (“javelin, dart”), Old English daroþ, dearod (“javelin, spear, dart”), Swedish dart (“dart, dagger”), Icelandic darraður, darr, dör (“dart, spear”).

verb/dɑːt/Received-Pronunciation/dɑɹt/General-American[daɹt̚][daɹɾ̥]
  1. To throw with a sudden effort or thrust; to hurl or launch.

    transitive
  2. To send forth suddenly or rapidly; to emit; to shoot.

    transitive
    As the sun darted forth his beams, she darted a meaningful glance at me.
  3. To shoot with a dart, especially a tranquilizer dart.

    transitive
    They had to dart the animal to get close enough to help
  4. To fly or pass swiftly, like a dart; to move rapidly in one direction; to shoot out quickly.

    intransitive
    The flying man darted eastward.
  5. To start and run with speed; to shoot rapidly along.

    intransitive
    The deer darted from the thicket.
    The fish darted under a stone.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English darten, from the noun (see above).

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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.