dao

Meanings

1. Any of various traditional Chinese swords with a curved, single-edged blade, primarily used for slashing and chopping.

1. Alternative form of Tao: the way of nature and/or the ideal way to live one's life.

1. Synonym of circuit: various administrative divisions of imperial and early Republican China.

1. Alternative form of dah (“Burmese knife or sword”).

1. A sword and construction tool of the Naga people of India, which has a wooden hilt and grows wider from the narrow hilt to the wide, flat tip.

1. Dracontomelon dao; a large tree of the family Anacardiaceae; the argus pheasant tree.
2. The hard strong wood of the dao used for veneers and cabinetwork.

1. Initialism of de-asphalted oil, a crude oil refinery process stream.
2. Initialism of disk-at-once, an optical disk recording mode.
3. Initialism of data access object, a design pattern.
4. Initialism of double action only, a trigger mechanism for revolving cylinder and semi-automatic firearms.
5. Acronym of decentralized autonomous organization, an autonomous entity based on smart contracts on a blockchain.

1. Initialism of Dragon Age: Origins.

1. Alternative form of Tao (“the way of nature, or ideal way to live one's life”).

1. Abbreviation of descending aorta.

Etymology

From Chinese 刀 (dāo, literally “single-edged blade”). Possibly a doublet of dah.