Meaning

noun small European freshwater fish with a slender bluish-green body

originOld variant of earlier darse, from Late Middle English darse (also as dace already), from Old French darz, oblique plural form of dart (“spear; javelin”). For a similar loss of r, compare bass, while for the pronunciation with /eɪ/, see scarce.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0