Definition of "dado" [da•do]

• Architecture The section of a pedestal between base and surbase. (noun)
• The lower portion of the wall of a room, decorated differently from the upper section, as with panels. (noun)
• A rectangular groove cut into a board so that a like piece may be fitted into it. (noun)
• The groove so cut. (noun)
• To furnish with a dado. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The ermine emblematically depicted in the dado is elsewhere suspended from the collar that Federico had received from the king of Naples; in each studiolo this collar dangles from a drawer or cabinet."
• "This custom of decorating the walls of a building with triangles placed at intervals on the upper edge of a dado is a feature of cliff-house kivas, as shown in"
• "The floor was of plain cut but elegant tiles, and the dado was a more intricate pattern of the same in shades of blue, green, and yellow, interspersed with black, but relieved by an abundance of greeny white."