See Also:

dot(2) (iou)



dot noun1.
[Old English dott (once); sense 2 may be from Dutch dot knot.]
The head of a boil. Only in OE.
A small lump, a clot. L16-M19.
A minute spot, speck, or mark; esp. a minute roundish mark written or printed. M17.
spec.
a. A point used in punctuation, as or as part of a punctuation mark, or to form part of or modify a letter or character. M18.
b. Music. A point placed after a note or rest to lengthen it by half as much again, or over a note to indicate that it is to be performed staccato. E19.
c. The shorter of the two signals (the other being the dash) which in various combinations make up the letters of the Morse alphabet. M19.
d. In pl. (The notes of) written or printed music. slang. E20.
e. A pointlike element of a television picture; an area of phosphor on the inside of a television tube corresponding to this. E20.
A little child; a small creature. colloq. M19.
Phrases: double dot: see DOUBLE adjective & adverb. off one's dot slang & dial. out of one's senses (cf. DOTTY adjective2 2). on the dot punctually, at the precise moment. the year dot: see YEAR noun1. to a dot exactly, precisely.
Comb.: dot com (also dot.com) [from the suffix .com in an Internet address, indicating a commercial site] a company which conducts its business on the Internet; dot-map a statistical map using dots as indicators of numbers or frequency; dot matrix a regular array of positions which are filled selectively to create a character (on a screen or on paper); also (in full dot matrix printer) = matrix printer s.v. MATRIX noun; dot plant a garden plant that is planted singly to stand out against the surrounding plants; dot-stitch: used in making dots in embroidery; dot product Math. = scalar product s.v. SCALAR adjective 2.