dash

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• transitive verb To damn.
• intransitive verb To move with haste; rush.
• intransitive verb To strike violently; smash.
• intransitive verb To break or smash by striking violently.
• intransitive verb To hurl, knock, or thrust with sudden violence.
• intransitive verb To remove by striking or wiping.
• intransitive verb To splash; bespatter.
• intransitive verb To write hastily. Often used with off.
• intransitive verb To drink hastily. Often used with down.
• intransitive verb To add an enlivening or altering element to.
• intransitive verb To affect by adding another element or ingredient to.
• intransitive verb To destroy or wreck: synonym: blast.
• intransitive verb To discourage or dispirit.
• noun A swift, violent blow or stroke.
• noun A splash.
• noun A small amount of an added ingredient.
• noun A quick stroke, as with a pencil or brush.
• noun A sudden movement; a rush.
• noun Sports A footrace, usually less than a quarter-mile long, run at top speed from the outset.
• noun A spirited quality in action or style; verve. synonym: vigor.
• noun Either of two symbols, an emdash or an endash, used in writing and in printing.
• noun In Morse and similar codes, the long sound or signal used in combination with the dot and silent intervals to represent letters or numbers.
• noun A dashboard.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A present or gratuity; a cumshaw.
• To strike suddenly and violently; give a sudden blow to.
• To cause to strike suddenly and with violence; throw or thrust violently or suddenly: as, to dash one stone against another; to dash water on the face.
• To break by collision or by strokes; shatter.
• To scatter or sprinkle something over; bespatter; sprinkle; splash; suffuse.
• To place, make, mark, sketch, etc., in a hasty manner.
• To throw something into so as to produce a mixture; mingle; mix; adulterate: as, to dash wine with water; the story is dashed with fables; to dash fire-damp with pure air (said in coal-mining: see dad).
• To cast down; thrust out or aside; impede; frustrate; abate; lower.
• To confound; confuse; put to shame; abash: as, he was dashed at the appearance of the judge.
• To erase at a stroke; strike out; blot out or obliterate: as, to dash out a line or a word.
• To strike out or form at a blow; produce suddenly.
• Synonyms Dash, Smash, Shatter, Shiver, Crush, Mash. That which is dashed does not necessarily go to pieces: if it is broken, the fact is commonly expressed. That which is smashed, shattered, or shivered is dashed to pieces suddenly, with violence, at a blow or in a collision. Smashing is the roughest and most violent of the three acts; the word expresses the most complete disruption or ruin: as, the drunken soldier smashed (shattered,' shivered) the mirror with the butt of his musket. The use of smash or mash for crush (as, his head was smashed, I mashed my finger) is colloquial. Shatter and shiver differ in that shatter suggests rather the flying of the parts, and shiver the breaking of the substance; and the pieces are more numerous or smaller with shiver. That which is crushed or mashed is broken down under pressure; that which is mashed becomes a shapeless mass: sugar and rock are crushed into powder, small particles, or bits; apples are crushed or mashed into pulp in making cider; boiled potatoes are mashed, not crushed, in preparing them for the table.
• To rush with violence; move rapidly and vehemently.
• To use rapidity in performance, so as to display force seemingly without care, as in painting or writing.
• noun A violent striking together of two bodies; collision.
• noun A sudden check; frustration; abashment: as, his hopes met with a dash.
• noun An impetuous movement; a quick stroke or blow; a sudden onset: as, to make a dash upon the enemy.
• noun A small infusion or admixture; something mingled with something else, especially to qualify or adulterate it: as, the wine has a dash of water.
• noun The capacity for unhesitating, prompt action, as against an enemy; vigor in attack: as, the corps was distinguished for dash.
• noun A flourish; an ostentatious parade.
• noun In writing and printing, a horizontal stroke or line of varying length, used as a mark of punctuation and for other purposes; specifically, in printing, a type the face of which consists of such a line.
• noun In printing, also, a line (variously modified in form) used for the separation of distinct portions of matter, as the parallel dash , the double dash , the diamond or swell dash , etc.