Dodd

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. Dialect verb meaning to cut off or lop the top or end of something ; describing cattle that have no horns, as in a polled breed
2. An old regional term for trimming or chopping away a part of something ; an adjective for animals, especially cows, that grow without horns
3. To shear or clip off a projecting part in older rural speech ; of livestock, lacking horns naturally or through removal

Etymology: "Dodd" is an alternative spelling of "dod," and the word has several unrelated roots that happen to have converged on the same form. One line of descent runs from Irish "dod," meaning sullenness or anger, while another comes from Scots "daud," a large piece, as of bread or meat, which gives the word its sense of a hefty chunk or lump. A separate strand is inherited from Middle English "dodden," a verb meaning to cut off or lop, which is the ancestor of the sense of trimming or shearing something short. Because these origins are distinct, the word is best understood as a cluster of older words that each arrived at the same spelling by a different path.