dingbat
/ˈdɪŋbæt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.97 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A special ornamental typographical symbol, such as a bullet, an arrow, a pointing hand etc.
noun
An architectural style of apartment building, where the second storey overhangs an area for parking cars.
Example Sentences
- "'Midge was such a dingbat', Jenny Fields wrote in her autobiography, 'that she went to Hawaii for a vacation during World War Two.'"
- "I hung around the older crews while they sling smack to dingbats"
- "The fire department is out here because some dingbat parked in the red zone."
- ""The compulsive editor, when checking the specs on an article, can't help checking also for such items as initial capital and closing dingbat, if they are used routinely. These decorative items have a way of being forgotten...""
- "This can be a dingbat, anagram, word puzzle, riddle or other quick warm-up activity and demonstrates to your students that when they come into your lessons, you get them thinking right away."
- "A dingbat is a kind of picture puzzle. Each picture represents a word, phrase or name, and the picture can often be supplemented with a couple of letters to assist in the guessing."
Etymology
Unknown, US mid 19th century. The word-puzzle sense comes from the board game Dingbats, which is based on these puzzles. In the sense of a miscellaneous gadget, probably influenced by dingus or its etyma.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈdɪŋbæt/