noun
dado
DAY-doh
noun
1
The lower part of an interior wall when it is decorated or finished differently from the wall above.
"The hallway had a dark wood dado below a pale, plastered upper wall."
2
A rectangular groove cut across a piece of wood to hold another piece in a joint.
"The carpenter cut a dado into the shelf side to hold the back panel."
How to Use Dado
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishEither a decorative lower section of a wall, or (in carpentry) a slot cut into wood to join pieces together.
Common pairings
dado rail
cut a dado
Word Forms
dadoed past tense, dados plural, dadoes plural, Dados plural, dadoes singular
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The hallway had a dark wood _____ below a pale, plastered upper wall.
Etymology
From Italian dado, first recorded in English in the 1660s.