dah

See also: daH

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɑː/
• Rhymes: -ɑː

Etymology 1

Imitative

Noun

dah (plural dahs)

1. The spoken representation of a dash in radio and telegraph Morse code.

Translations

spoken representation of a dash

• French: ta (fr) m
• Japanese: ツー (ja) (tsū)
• Russian: тире́ (ru) n (tirɛ́)

See also

• dit

Etymology 2

From Burmese ဓား (dha:). Possibly a doublet of dao.

Alternative forms

• dao, dha, dow

Noun

dah (plural dahs)

1. (Myanmar) A long knife or sword with a round cross-section grip, a long, gently curving blade with a single edge, and no guard.
   • 1922, Rudyard Kipling, What Happened‎^[1], lines 33–36:

     Jowar Singh the Sikh procured sabre, quoit, and mace, / Abdul Huq, Wahabi, jerked his dagger from its place, / While amid the jungle-grass danced and grinned and jabbered / Little Boh Hla-oo and cleared his dah-blade from the scabbard.

   • 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Chapter 22”, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC:

     It was like a sea of people, two thousand at the least, black and white in the moon, with here and there a curved dah glittering.

Anagrams

• DHA, dha, HDA, had, AHD, ADH

Indonesian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈdah]
• Hyphenation: dah
• Rhymes: -dah, -ah, -h

Etymology 1

Clipping of sudah, from Malay dah. In the interjection sense, false cognate of Russian да (da, “yes”).

Interjection

dah

1. good, okay

Particle

dah

1. (colloquial) perfective aspect

Etymology 2

From Dutch dag (“goodbye”), from Middle Dutch dach, from Old Dutch dag, from Proto-Germanic *dagaz. This word was originally spelled dag as in Dutch, but the final -g is replaced by -h and the form becomes archaic, but not in the word mag, were it always pronounced with final /h/ or /x/.

Interjection

dah

1. bye, good bye

Etymology 3

From Malay dah. Compare to Old Javanese dadah (“sacrifice”).

Noun

dah (first-person possessive dahku, second-person possessive dahmu, third-person possessive dahnya)

1. (obsolete) service, duty

   Synonyms: dinas, jasa

Further reading

• “dah” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Malay

Etymology

Apheresis of sudah.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /da(h)/
• Rhymes: -dah, -ah

Adverb

dah (Jawi spelling ده)

1. (informal) Clipping of sudah.

Particle

dah

1. (colloquial) Marks the perfective aspect.
   • 1932 December 26, Ibni, “Melayu Tak Boleh Maju”, in Majlis‎^[2], Singapore, archived from the original on 24 November 2023, page 7:

     Jikalau zaman itu dibuka Pekan-Pekan Mingguan, bukankah senang pada masa ini? Anak-anak Melayu dah tau ilmu berniaga kesemuanya.

     If back then Weekly Markets were opened, wouldn't it be easy by now? Malay children [would] already have all the wisdom about business.

Further reading

• “dah” in Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu | Malay Literary Reference Centre, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2017.
• Hooi, Ling Soh (2023 August) “On the discourse marker dah in Colloquial Malay (and sudah in Sabah Malay)”, in Hiroki Nomoto & Elin McCready, editors, Discourse Particles in Asian Languages Volume II, London: Routledge, →DOI, →ISBN

Navajo

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɑ̀h/

• Audio:

  (file)

Adverb

dah

1. up, off, at an elevation, set off

   dah yooʼááł ― he’s holding it up

   dah diilwod ― he started off at a run

Derived terms

Derived terms

• bikááʼdahʼasdáhí (“chair, seat, bench”)
• dah alzhin (“dot, speck; minute (of time”)
• dah azką́ (“mesa”)
• dah díníilghaazh (“frybread”)
• dah iistłʼǫ́ (“loom”)
• dah naʼatʼaʼí (“flag”)
• dah woozh (“strawberry”)

Old English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɑːx/

Noun

dāh m (nominative plural dāgas)

1. Alternative form of dāg

Declension

Strong a-stem:

	singular	plural
nominative	dāh	dāgas
accusative	dāh	dāgas
genitive	dāges	dāga
dative	dāge	dāgum

Portuguese

Verb

dah

1. (Brazil, Internet slang) Alternative spelling of dá

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *dъxъ.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dâx/

Noun

dȁh m (Cyrillic spelling да̏х)

1. breath
2. breathing, respiration
3. stench, odor

Declension

Declension of dah

	singular	plural
nominative	dȁh	dȁhovi/dȁsi
genitive	daha	dahova/dasa
dative	dahu	dahovima/dasima
accusative	dah	dahove/dase
vocative	daše / dahu	dahovi/dasi
locative	dahu	dahovima/dasima
instrumental	dahom	dahovima/dasima

Derived terms

• odàhnuti (“to pause”)

References

• “dah”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2024

Southern Sami

Etymology

From the plural of Proto-Samic *tātë (“this”). Cognates include Pite Sami dáh (“these”).

Pronoun

dah

1. they

Inflection

This pronoun needs an inflection-table template.

Zhuang

Pronunciation

• (Standard Zhuang) IPA^(key): /ta˧/
• Tone numbers: da⁶
• Hyphenation: dah

Etymology 1

From Proto-Tai *daːᴮ (“river”). Cognate with Thai ท่า (tâa, “pier”), Lao ທ່າ (thā, “pier”), Lü ᦑᦱᧈ (taa¹, “pier”), Shan တႃႈ (tāa, “pier; shallow place in water”).

Noun

dah (Sawndip forms 汏 or 㳠 or 𭰃 or 他 or 驮 or 𭯾 or ⿲氵马犬 or 䭾, 1957–1982 spelling daƅ)

1. river

Derived terms

• dahmbwn

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Classifier

dah (Sawndip forms 𡚻 or 𰌄 or 𫰋 or 驮 or 妖, 1957–1982 spelling daƅ)

1. Classifier for young females.

Zou

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /daʔ˧/

Noun

dah

1. bell

References

• Lukram Himmat Singh (2013) A Descriptive Grammar of Zou, Canchipur: Manipur University, page 44