c. 1300, daerie, "building for making butter and cheese; dairy farm," formed with Anglo-French -erie (from Latin -arius; see -ery) affixed to Middle English daie (in daie maid "dairymaid"), which is from Old English dæge "kneader of bread, housekeeper, female servant" (see dey (n.1)). The pure native word was dey-house (mid-14c.). Meaning "branch of farming concerned with the production of milk, butter, and cheese" is from 1670s. Later also "shop where milk, butter, etc. are sold."

c. 1300, "platform or raised floor at one end of a room or hall," from Anglo-French deis, Old French dais, dois "platform, high table," from Latin discus "disk-shaped object," also, in Medieval Latin, "table," from Greek diskos "quoit, disk, dish" (see disk (n.)). It died out in English c. 1600, was preserved in Scotland, and was revived 19c. by antiquarians.

common wildflower of Europe, growing in pastures and on mountainsides and cultivated in gardens, c. 1300, daiseie, from Old English dægesege, from dæges eage "day's eye;" see day (n.) + eye (n.). So called because the petals open at dawn and close at dusk. In Medieval Latin it was solis oculus "sun's eye." The use of dais eye for "the sun" is attested from early 15c.

Applied to similar plants in America, Australia, New Zealand. As a female proper name said to have been originally a pet form of Margaret (q.v.). Slang sense of "anything pretty, charming, or excellent" is by 1757.

Daisy-cutter first attested 1791, originally "a trotting horse," especially one that trots with low steps; later of cricket (1889) and baseball hits that skim along the ground. Daisy-chain is used in various figurative senses from 1856; the "group sex" sense is attested by 1941. Daisy-wheel for a removable printing unit in the form of a flat wheel is attested by 1974. Pushing up daisies "dead" is World War I soldier's slang from 1917 (see push (v.)), but variants with the same meaning go back to 1842.

1809, name of a group of native peoples from the American plains speaking a Siouan language, from Dakota dakhota "friendly" (the name often is translated as "allies"). Recorded by Lewis and Clark (1804) as Dar co tar; in western dialects of the Teton subgroup, Lakota, Lakhota; in Assiniboine dialect, Nakota, Nakhota. The north-central U.S. Dakota Territory was organized in 1861 and divided into North and South and admitted as two states in 1889. Related: Dakotan.

sort of vetch cultivated in the East Indies, 1690s, from Hindi dal "split pulse," from Sanskrit dala, from dal "to split."

one of the two lamas (along with the Panchen Lama, who was formerly known in English as the Tashi or Tesho Lama) of Tibetan Buddhism, spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, literally "the ocean lama," from Mongolian dalai "ocean" (here probably signifying "big," in contrast to the Panchen Lama) + lama.

level or gently sloping ground between low hills with a stream flowing through it, Old English dæl "vale, valley, gorge," from Proto-Germanic *dalaz "valley" (source also of Old Saxon, Dutch, Gothic dal, Old Norse dalr, Old High German tal, German Tal "valley"), perhaps from PIE *dhel- "a hollow" (source also of Old Church Slavonic dolu "pit," Russian dolu "valley"), or perhaps a substratum word. It was preserved by Norse influence in the north of England. Related: Dalesman.

robot in the "Dr. Who" television program on BBC, 1963, an invented word of no etymology.

city in Texas, U.S., settled 1841, named 1846 for George M. Dallas (1792-1864), U.S. vice president under Polk (1845-49). The family name (13c.) is from the barony of Dallas (Moray) or means "dweller at the house in the dale."

the source of The Dalles, city name in Oregon, U.S., from dalle, the name given by French employees of the Hudson's Bay Company and its successors to certain situations of rivers, the best-known being the one on the Columbia River that gives the city its name. The French word might be a reference to trough-like channels, from Low German or Dutch daal "outlet, drain," or it might be from a different but identical word meaning "slab or large tile of stone."