dallop

English

Etymology

Origin unknown. Perhaps cognate with Norwegian dialect dolp, a lump.

Noun

dallop (plural dallops)

1. (obsolete, East Anglia and Essex) A tuft or clump, especially an unploughed patch amongst fields of corn.
   • 1573, Thomas Tusser, “Augusts husbandrie”, in Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie‎^[1], London: English Dialect Society, published 1878, page 131:

     Of barlie the longest and greenest ye find, / leaue standing by dallops, till time ye doo bind

2. (obsolete) Alternative form of dollop. [15th–18th c.]
   • [1826, John Thomson, “Dallop”, in Etymons of English Words, Edinburgh: Published by Oliver & Boyd, Tweeddale-Court; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, →OCLC, column 1:

     Dallop, s[ubstantive] a deal heap, a division or small heap, […]]

   • [1830, Robert Forby, The Vocabulary of East Anglia; an Attempt to Record the Vulgar Tongue of the Twin Sister Counties, Norfolk and Suffolk, as It Existed in the Last Twenty Years of the Eighteenth Century, and still Exists; with Proof of Its Antiquity from Etymology and Authority. [...] In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Printed by and for J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols and Son, 25, Parliament Street, →OCLC, page 88:

     DALLOP, s[ubstantive] […] 5. A clumsy and shapeless lump of any thing tumbled about in the hands.]

References

• Wright, Joseph (1900) The English Dialect Dictionary‎^[2], volume 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 116, "dollop", sense 4.