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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?
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Carpal Tunnel
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I think it's a visual onamata.. onomatopaeia...onomonty... oh, you know... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, a dollop is a dollop. No more, no less. How much more precision do you need?
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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The choice is very simple, Father Steve...a dollop or a dash!
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not at all a smidgeon--a dollop is a large indeterminate quantity.
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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.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
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> 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?
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