Dada | Definition & History
Several explanations have been given by various members of the movement as to how it received its name. According to the most widely accepted account, the name was adopted at Hugo Ball’s Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, during one of the meetings held in 1916 by a group of young artists and war resisters that included Jean Arp, Richard Hülsenbeck, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, and Emmy Hennings. When a paper knife inserted into a French-German dictionary pointed to the French word dada (“hobby-horse”), it was seized upon by the group as appropriate for their anti-aesthetic creations and pr...
Source: britannica.com