dash: [13] Dash is probably of Scandinavian origin – Danish daske ‘beat’ has been compared – but whether it was a borrowing or a home- grown word, it was no doubt formed in imitation of rapid impulsive violent movement. Its original sense in English was ‘hit, smash’ (now rather eclipsed, put preserved in such phrases as ‘dash someone’s hopes’). ‘Move quickly and violently’ followed in the 14th century, and the noun sense ‘stroke of a pen’ in the 16th century (this probably gave rise to the use of the word as a euphemism for damned, from the replacement of that word in print with a dash).
