dab/dab hand:
(plural: ‘dabs‘/’dab hands‘ — for the right pronunciation of dab hand, please click here)
a person who is very clever or good at something;
an expert; an adept,
a dab at sewing
e.g.
Our aunt is a dab at cross puzzles.
Rob’s sister is a dab hand at knitting.
Matty, who loves to eat good food, is a dab hand in the kitchen, cooking something new and delicious with whatever is available in the fridge!
Some celebrities are dab hands at not only pulling the crowds to their shows but also making some of the tough fans calm down when things go wrong at the shows.
For an interesting article on the origin of this word/phrase, please click here and for an item of news that shows us how we find this word/phrase in our daily reading, please click here.
dabbing some paint
Note: ‘Dab’ is more commonly used in its verb form to mean ‘to apply something, such as paint, lightly on something; to touch lightly’, and as a noun, it is also used to mean ‘a small amount of something, usually something soft and moist like ink or paint’, e.g. ‘a dab of paint’, ‘a dab of ink’, ‘a dab of jelly’, ‘He dabbed some cream on her back and shoulders.’, etc. Sand dab or dab, however, is a species of flatfish that inhabits the Pacific from Alaska to Central America. Dabbing, on the other hand, is the practice of smoking dabs, vaporizing concentrated marijuana, usually in the form of wax or hash, by placing it on an extremely hot metal object called a nail and inhaling the smoke. Then ‘dab’ or ‘dab dance’ is a kind of dance.
