Dashwood
Does anyone have /any/ information on the surname Dashwood? I'm really looking for its etymology, but at this point any little tidbit will do.It appears to only be popular in fiction, but I know of one real family with this surname.Thanks for any help...
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Dash is from ON, or Old Norse, or ME, Middle english, dassche. I recommend looking it up in a large dictionary. The word I came up from several sources is STRIKE, interestingly enough, as you read on.
My name is HOLT, in OE, or, ME WOLD. It's meaning, to me, most simply is WOOD, but most sources list it rather as FOREST. You can trace Holt to the Greek word khldos, which comes from the word KEL, which means either a twig or to STRIKE. So, if you understand what I wrote, Holt means forest, but meant part of a tree, the twig. It is indeed hard to see the trees for the forest sometimes. Dash is often listed as strike, so, here we go round again.......
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According to Reaney and Wilson's "Dictionary of English Surnames", it is "De" Ashwood, "of Ashwood". The Earliest instance of the name cited is a Zachary Dashwood in Devon (?), 1693, which is a pretty late example. I wonder if the name was originally Ashwood, and a D' was added later to give it "a touch of class".
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