What is "dabbings"

Usage examples of "dabbings".

His dabbings were tentative at first, but his motions became more confident when his patient did not twitch or move during the procedure.

The mayor's madame did her routine duties—providing motherly sniffles and eye dabbings during each ceremony, then witnessing the marriage certificate signatures afterward—as stolidly as if all the principals were only local goatherd bumpkins or the even lowlier resident artists and poets.