Clever, skilled, as “a dabhand at it”; a corrupt contraction of the Latin adeptus (an adept). “Dabster” is another form. Apt is a related word.
“An Eton stripling, training for the law,
A dunce at learning, but a dab at law [marbles].”
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Anon.: Logic: or, The Biter Bit
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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