A dado is the lower part of a wall inside a room, treated as its own band — usually the bottom metre or so — when it is decorated differently from the wall above. Often it is wood panelling, or a different paint colour, or a heavier wallpaper, and it is finished at the top with a strip of moulding called a dado rail. There was a practical reason for it before it became a decoration: the bottom of a wall is where chairs knock, where children's hands go, and where damp climbs, so people covered it with something tougher. You meet the word most in older houses, in building and decorating talk, and in British English more than American. In woodworking, 'dado' also names a straight square-bottomed groove cut across a board so another board can slot into it — this use is mostly American, where a 'dado joint' is what British carpenters call a housing joint. As a verb, to dado a board is to cut that groove in it.

牆裙（牆面下半段的護牆板或不同裝飾；木工上另指開槽、槽榫）