Participants on this board have used the word "dollop" to describe an undescribed quantity of orange juice, mortar, potato starch, yoghurt, smoke, cream, and mashed potatoes. Fiberbabe has revealed that the word gives her the heebie-jeebies. But no one has defined this word, in particular, with reference to how much it is. What is the point of having a word used to describe a measure, without revealing the measure?

I think it's a visual onamata.. onomatopaeia...onomonty... oh, you know...

Well, a dollop is a dollop. No more, no less. How much more precision do you need?

If one were measuring, say, brandy into the punch, there would be little need for precision. But if one were carefully measuring nitro glycerine, that might be another matter altogether.

A..HA! Father Steve, you have hit on the very thing: no one would use imprecise indicators where exact measurement is vital. I've seen many a recipe with, for ex., a "pinch" of salt listed in the ingredients. A few grains more or less of that isn't going to make a noticeable difference. But an extra grain of something very potent might. I would not want my pharmacist to make up capsules for me according to what a "pinch" is!
Some years ago I read that developers of cake mixes cook them up with instructions and ingredients that depart further and further from what they should be, until it gets to the point where the cake just...won't. They do this so as to be able to allow for a wide margin of error that they know will occur when customers get hold of them.

The choice is very simple, Father Steve...a dollop or a dash!

How about a smidgeon?

not at all a smidgeon--a dollop is a large indeterminate quantity.

Agreed. A smidgeon is much smaller than a dollop, although you could qualify your dollop and take it down to smidgeon size by saying, "...a very tiny, understated dollop." A dollop in the middle range is about the size of a hen's egg. But I wouldn't use dollop with orange juice. I think of dollops as having a form that will hold for a while, and orange juice is a liquid that won't hold its form--unless we're talking frozen orange juice. Now you could have a dollop of frozen orange juice.

> a dollop is a large indeterminate quantity.

This is definitely the case with relatively solid matter, e.g. a dollop of cream is a fair lump. Some might say a 'blob' or 'gob' too, and I've been known to say 'a dob' and use it as a verb though I don't know whether this isn't just a self-made conglomerate - there seems to be a word cluster here.
For liquids dollop is equivalent to 'a splash', i.e. a *small(ish) amount.

btw tsuwm, what drove you to want to answer the thread's question?

I've never associated "dollop" with any "size", large or small. A dollop is a dollop to me, that is some indeterminate amount. The use of "dash", "pinch", "splash", etc. are much more precise, in an imprecise kind of way.

A dollop of concrete could mean anything from a bricklayer's trowelful to an entire truckload. A dollop of milk in my cornflakes has a finite upper limit (the capacity of the bowl), but the lower limit is bounded only by it needing to be greater than 0. A dollop of glue on the back of a piece of paper being glued to another is both upper and lower bounded by common sense and paper size. Beyond that, hey, the possibilities are boundless.

I agree with those who say that the size of a dollop varies with the substance being measured and also with the observation that a dollop wouldn't refer to a liquid. Liquid is measured in glucks.

A dollop of concrete could mean anything from a bricklayer's trowelful to an entire truckload.

Capfka got it right, a dollop is a generous amount.. but not overflowing..
if you read the label of the immitation 'whipped cream' containers, they say a small contain has 56 servings.. (about 2 cups in volume, or about the same as i 1/2 pint of heavy cream whipped)in reality, for most house holds, it has 8 to 10 serving.

even in the commercials, they don't show it being doled out at a rate that would yeild 56 servings, they show it being served in dollops!

of course for whipped cream, one has schlag! (a german word-- don't know what it mean in german, but its come to mean a generous dollop of whip cream served with the food-- at least in people of a certain age--it could also signify sour cream, if appropriate.)

so one could say 'we had ice cream for dessert, not quite sundays, but it did have schlag and nuts."

…and I've been known to say 'a dob' and use it as a verb though I don't know whether this isn't just a self-made conglomerate… ~ by

This rang an unrelated bell with me so I dived into a dictionary of 'Slang Used in the UK' looking for this:

dob: Verb. To inform on, betray. [Orig. Aust.]

I also found these. (Amazing, incidentally, how many terms are used for the organs of generation)(I like to be delicate - keeps the gutter police away ):

dobber: Noun. 1. A penis.2. An idiot, a contemptible person.3. Something very large. E.g."I've never seen a pizza so big, it was a real dobber, and we could only eat half of it between six of us." [Northern use]

dobbing Adj. A general intensifier. E.g."This dobbing great idiot spilt my drink and didn't apologise, so I hit him."

>what drove you to want to answer the thread's question?

well, there was Father Steve about to put a smidgeon of thick clotted cream on his scones.

but I have an inkling that I haven't answered *your question..

To me a dollop is a rather large serving plumped down on
recipient's plate with inelegant vigor.

I remember there being an icecream shop by the name of "Dollops" where I lived as a child (much frequented by us kids, of course)... It was much later that I learnt that 'dollop' didn't exclusively refer to icecream!!

Not only that, but with a little looseness of the vertical spacing, a dollop is also a rotational palindrome.

Write it on a small piece of paper, push a pin through the paper between the two "l"s, turn the paper around the pin 180 degrees, and you still have the same word.

It's too bad you can't speak of a dollop of paper; the symmetries would be multiplied even more!

Good grief, wofa, how did you ever think of doing something like that? That's cool.

of course for whipped cream, one has schlag
schlag is not a measure, but simply short for german Schlagrahm i.e. whipped (geschlagener) cream (Rahm).

to an entire truckload is stretching the point to the limit, imho: the onomatopoietic ring of the word would be difficult to reconcile with the manner in which a truck, loaded with concrete, is discharged.

."a dollop in the middle range is about the size of a hen's egg...having a form that will hold for a while..."

I'm entirely with WW. In whipped cream or such it's about the amount easily held in a tablespoon, plopped on top of the main dish, and holding its shape is clearly an implied property of the substance in question.

As I recall, Tigger called it a "golollop" (sp?) when he took that amount of Roo's Strengthening Medicine. Although I don't think Extract of Malt has all that much solidity, now that I think of it...Maybe it was Pooh with Hunny.

Maybe by is thinking of daub not dob? Atomica gives lots of cheerful definitions, which sort of fit the idea, though they seem to refer specifically to paint:

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daub (dôb)

v., daubed, daub·ing, daubs.

v.tr.
To cover or smear with a soft adhesive substance such as plaster, grease, or mud.
To apply paint to (a surface) with hasty or crude strokes.
To apply with quick or crude strokes: daubed glue on the paper.
v.intr.
To apply paint or coloring with crude, unskillful strokes.
To make crude or amateurish paintings.
To daub a sticky material.
n.
The act or a stroke of daubing.
A soft adhesive coating material such as plaster, grease, or mud.
Matter daubed on.
A crude, amateurish painting or picture.
[Middle English dauben, from Old French dauber, from Latin d?alb?re, to whitewash : d?-, intensive pref.; see de? + albus, white.]

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And for me, a dollop always involves a spoon. It's the amount of something goopy you can scoop with a spoon, and with a flourish, glob it onto your plate. Therefore, as stated earlier, you couldn't speak of a dollop of orange juice. We would like use the word for sour cream or whipped cream.