(v. t.) To wet by little dips or strokes; to spatter; to sprinkle; to moisten; to wet.
(v. i.) To play in water, as with the hands; to paddle or splash in mud or water.
(v. i.) To work in slight or superficial manner; to do in a small way; to tamper; to meddle.
Example Sentences:
(1) Now she also dabbles in playwriting and rap, and is in the band Sound of Rum .
(2) Rebelling by dabbling in drink, fags, sex – the list goes on – is part of growing up.
(3) Asked by a troll how long he planned to “live off” his Olympic success, and if he would ever do anything of consequence again, Rutherford suggested he might become a porn star or dabble in pottery instead.
(4) With Jackie Collins announcing plans to self-publish a revised version of her novel The Bitch, even traditionally published authors are now dabbling in self-publishing, and the survey found this was to good effect: they earned 2.5 times more when self-publishing than did rejected authors or authors who went straight to self-publishing.
(5) Mean arterial blood pressure in dives was unchanged from pre-dive levels in both naive and trained dabbling ducks.
(6) The US dabbled ineffectually in helping the rebel cause, hobbled by uncertainty over the groups it was dealing with.
(7) His father was a doctor who dabbled in property and ran for local election on a far-right ticket in 1959.
(8) He seems to hanker after footholds – a dabble with Scientology has come to an end, and it seems fair to say that the experience has contributed to what he calls his "wounded position".
(9) He is a maverick, a teenager – and dabbles in enough off-beat skits to fill that token jazz category.
(10) Absolute Radio has already launched the digital services Absolute Radio Classic Rock, Absolute 80s, Absolute 90s and its user-controlled station, dabbl .
(11) That may be so - and both the Times and Telegraph dabble in the Mail market.
(12) He also dabbled in cleaning and fabric-dying businesses, thought of becoming a professional cameraman and was eager to market self-designed chess sets, optical machines and scientific toys.
(13) The cause of the yearly death of an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 migrating dabbling ducks (Anas spp.)
(14) Dickens said dabbl would initially be a London-based service on DAB but would soon expand its reach to parts of the south of England including Essex, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Bristol.
(15) Blessed – or cursed – with Africa's most famous name, many of the Mandelas have gone into business; a few have dabbled in politics and two are starring in a much-derided reality TV show, Being Mandela .
(16) It wasn't until 2005, in Untold Stories, that he discussed his sexuality and said he considered himself gay, despite his long-term dabbling with the other side.
(17) The Nevada state assemblywoman was – before her dabble as negotiator-in-chief – best known for the striking images she distributes of herself and her family armed with guns.
(18) Yet one of the rationales for QE is that it discourages investors from holding government bonds and encourages them to dabble in riskier assets.
(19) Donald Trump may have insulted Mexicans, Muslims and women but to woo Indian American voters he’s even dabbling in Hindi for Diwali.
(20) They charge visitors $20 for a tour, carry out routine maintenance to prevent it turning to dust, and hope that one day the old autocrat’s children, who continue to dabble in politics, will restore it for the nation.
Dilettante
Definition:
(v. t.) An admirer or lover of the fine arts; popularly, an amateur; especially, one who follows an art or a branch of knowledge, desultorily, or for amusement only.
Example Sentences:
(1) As if to prove her silly dilettantism, when a journalist asked Dasha about her favourite artists, she replied, "I'm, like, really bad at remembering names."
(2) No dilettante side-project of the idle millionaire rock star, this.
(3) Those who have worked closely with the foreign secretary in the past say his ego is more fragile than it can appear, and he is sensitive to the accusation of being a political dilettante.
(4) In the reality of the early 1960s, he was the wealthy playboy-dilettante secretary of state for war who almost destroyed Harold Macmillan's Conservative government by the discovery of his dalliance with the dancer and call-girl Christine Keeler, who was also said to be sleeping with the Soviet naval attaché Evegeny Ivanov.
(5) An open recognition of the problems in the psychoanalytic study of literature should serve to minimize dilettantism and raise the level of scholarship.
(6) In 1666, he's angry about the smug dilettantism of the courtly elite, and the appalling arse-licking conformity that even his closest friend indulges in.
(7) And Vronsky’s own dilettante-ish attempt to paint Anna is abandoned: a bad and complex omen.
(8) Nevertheless it proved Bonaparte a bona fide creative psychoanalyst and not a dilettante propped up by her friendship with Freud.
(9) "There's no need to be artsy-fartsy … only dilettantes prefer enigmatic works."
(10) Ronson admits it rankles when people assume he got his breaks because of his privileged background or that he is little more than a millionaire dilettante, playing with his electronic synths and Gucci-designed shoes whenever the fancy takes him.
(11) Bush isn’t succumbing to Sting-esque world music dilettantism, though, as the seemingly incongruous parts are all held together in service of her unique musical vision.
(12) The documentary explores the headlong rush of a brilliant schoolboy with illegible handwriting who enjoyed the dilettante life of Oxford University before illness sparked a lifelong frenzy of discovery about the origins of the universe, which began as a graduate at Cambridge University and has astounded the world.
(13) Russell Brand's call on the young not to vote was the pseudo-leftism of a dumb dilettante precisely because politicians can ignore the interests of the young when the young do not threaten them at the polling booths.
(14) "[Gandhi] came off as a practiced politician who knew how to get his message across, was precise and articulate and demonstrated a mastery that belied the image some have of [him] as a dilettante," the official said.
(15) Her Stakhanovite work rate as a writer and as a working peer made most of us feel like dilettantes.
(16) Along the way, there has been the worst kind of ministerial dilettantism and inconsistency.
(17) Unlike his TV persona as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock , the self-described dilettante is an intelligent interviewer with a voice that mesmerises.
(18) It's hard to work out if Lebedev worries about whether people see him as a spoilt, rich dilettante.
(19) His appointment was not a success, not least with Castle, who regarded him as a dilettante, not really interested in pursuing his policies and proposed legislation.
(20) Unlike dilettante-esque me, most of the journalists out in Brazil will be there for the full five weeks.