mottle
/ˈmɒt(ə)l
/verb [with object]
Mark with spots or smears of colour: green leaves that are heavily mottled with chocolate and maroon (as adjective mottled) a bird with mottled brown plumage...
- The Upland Sandpiper is a black, brown, and white mottled bird with a long neck and tail and yellow legs.
- The bald skin is mottled with age spots, which have gone crusty.
- The woman was wearing a short sleeved beige top and her bare arms were mottled red from the cold.
Synonyms
blotchy, blotched, spotted, spotty;
speckled, streaked, streaky, marbled, flecked, freckled, dappled, stippled, piebald, skewbald, pied, brindled, brindle, tabby, marled;
patchy, variegated, multicoloured, particoloured;
North American pinto
informal splotchy, splodgy
rare jaspé
noun
1An irregular arrangement of spots or patches of colour: the ship was not dull grey as distance had suggested, but a mottle of khaki and black and olive green...
- Cold Mountain was a mottle of colour, rising behind the house.
1.1A spot or patch forming part of a mottled arrangement: a pale grey with lighter grey mottles...
- Peanuts will grow in clay loam, but small clay particles stick to the textured surfaces of mature peanut pods, leaving mottles that mar the beauty of the shells.
- People like the original glass, even if it does have a few mottles.
- Remarkably, however, the rooms on the second floor below show little sign of decay, bar some mottles on the ceiling.
Origin
Late 18th century: probably a back-formation from motley.
motley from Late Middle English:
The word motley originally described a fabric woven from different-coloured threads, and was later extended to refer to the multicoloured costume traditionally worn by a court jester. To wear motley is to play the fool, and a motley fool is a professional jester. On with the motley is a quote from the English translation of Leoncavello's 1892 opera Pagliacci, about the real-life troubles of a group of comic actors, while motley crew was in use of a mixed bunch of sailors by the mid 18th century. Mottle was formed in the late 18th century from motley.