▪ I. dimple, n.
(ˈdɪmp(ə)l)
Also 5 dympull.
[Evidenced only from 15th c., and app. not common till late in the 16th: origin uncertain. Its form answers to OHG. dumphilo, MHG. tumpfel, tümpfel, mod.G. dümpfel, tümpel pool, but connexion is not historically made out. It has also been collated with dimble, and conjectured to be a nasalized deriv. of dip, or a dim. of dint with consonantal change.]
1. A small hollow or dent, permanent or evanescent, formed in the surface of some plump part of the human body, esp. in the cheeks in the act of smiling, and regarded as a pleasing feature.
| c 1400 Destr. Troy 3060 Hir chyn full choise was..With a dympull full derne, daynté to se. 1588 Greene Pandosto (1607) 19 Shee hath dimples in her cheekes. 1598 Florio, Pozzette, dimples, pits, or little holes in womens cheekes. 1611 Shakes. Wint. T. ii. iii. 101 The Valley, The pretty dimples of his Chin, and Cheeke. 1632 Milton L'Allegro 30 Wreathèd Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek. 1784 F. Burney Diary 4 Oct., Three letters in her hand, and three thousand dimples in her cheek and chin! 1813 Byron Giaour (Orig. Draft) ii. Wks. (1846) 63/1 note, Like dimples upon Ocean's cheek. 1870 Emerson Soc. & Solit., Dom. Life Wks. (Bohn) III. 42 Parents, studious of the witchcraft of curls and dimples and broken words. |
b. The action of dimpling.
| 1713 Steele Guardian No. 29 ¶6 The dimple is practised to give a grace to the features, and is frequently made a bait to entangle a gazing lover. |
2. transf. Any slight surface depression or indentation resembling the preceding, as a dip in the surface of land or a ripple on the water.
| 1632 Lithgow Trav. vi. 278 Whereon (say they) Elias oft slept, and..that the hollow dimples of the stone was onely made by the impression of his body. 1664 Power Exp. Philos. i. 3 Not absolute perforations, but onley dimples in their crustaceous Tunica Cornea. 1796 Withering Brit. Plants IV. 82 Upper part [of fungus] convex, with or without a dimple in the centre. 1801 Southey Thalaba xi. xxxviii, The gentle waters gently part In dimples round the prow. 1815 Guide to Watering Places 299 In a dimple of the hill..rises St. Anne's Well. 1892 J. Mather Poems 51 In dimples of the mountain lay The panting herd of deer. |
3. Comb.
| 1874 Mrs. Whitney We Girls ix. 184 Her dimple-cleft and placid chin. 1892 J. Ashby-Sterry Lazy Minstr. 80 Sweet little dimple-cheek—Merrily dancing. |
▪ II. ˈdimple, v.
[f. prec. n.]
1. trans. To mark with, or as with, dimples.
| 1602 Marston Antonio's Rev. iii. iii. Wks. 1856 I. 110, I will laugh, And dimple my thinne cheeke With capring joy. 1697 Dryden æneid vii. 43 With whirlpools dimpl'd. 1796 Southey Ball. Donica, No little wave Dimpled the water's edge. 1830 Tennyson Lilian 16 The lightning laughters dimple The baby-roses in her cheeks. 1847–8 H. Miller First Impr. vi. (1857) 102 Here the surface is dimpled by unreckoned hollows: there fretted by uncounted mounds. 1891 B. Harte First Fam. Tasajara xiii, Leaden rain..dimpling like shot the sluggish pools of the flood. |
2. intr. To break into dimples or ripples, to form dimples, to ripple.
| a 1700 Dryden (J.), Smiling eddies dimpled on the main. 1735 Pope Prol. Sat. 316 As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. 1762 Goldsm. Cit. W. cxiv, She is then permitted to dimple and smile, when the dimples and smiles begin to forsake her. 1805 Wordsw. Prelude vi. 652 A lordly river..Dimpling along in silent majesty. 1851 Thackeray Eng. Hum. ii. (1876) 181 Cheeks dimpling with smiles. 1864 Tennyson Aylmer's F. 149 Low knolls That dimpling died into each other. |