Dodden

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. A dialect verb meaning to lop or cut back the branches, tops or ends of plants, such as trees or hedges
2. Describes trimming off the top or extremities of growth, especially in certain regional English dialects
3. Refers to cutting short or pruning vegetation by removing its tips, a usage found in some rural dialects

Etymology: "Dodden" is a Middle English and Scots-adjacent word meaning "trimmed at the tips," and its history is quite plain. It is the past participle of "dodden," a verb meaning to lop or cut off, especially the tops or ends of branches, horns or hair. The verb came into English from a Germanic source related to Low German and Dutch words for cutting short, and it was used mainly in dialect and older texts rather than in standard speech. The adjective's sense came straight from the verb: something that has been "dodded" has had its extremities cut away, so a tree pruned of its topmost growth or a sheep with its horns clipped could be described this way. Because the word was never widely used in print, its exact first recorded date is uncertain, but it belongs to the period when English dialects supplied many short, concrete verbs for practical acts like pruning and shearing.