A small dapple or spot; a person with a dappled complexion or appearance (archaic or dialectal).
From 'dapple' or 'daps' plus the diminutive suffix '-on' or '-son'; a rare word combining dap-related roots with a size-reduction suffix.
Dapson is so obscure that it barely appears in modern English, but its existence shows how richly English once played with diminutives to describe size and characteristics—we've largely abandoned this flexibility.
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