A caress or tender touch; an act of fondling or petting (dialectal or archaic).
Related to the verb 'dauk,' this noun form appears in Scottish and Northern English texts. It derives from similar roots to the verb, possibly influenced by Low German or Dutch 'dauken,' meaning caress.
Many tactile emotion words like 'dauke' have disappeared from standard English but survive in regional dialects—they're like linguistic fossils showing us what mattered to our ancestors in expressing physical affection.
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