spot

spot n *place, position, location, situation, site, station

Analogous words: *locality, district, neighborhood, vicinity: region, *area, tract, belt, zone: section, sector (see PART)

spot vb Spot, spatter, sprinkle, mottle, fleck, stipple, marble, speckle, spangle, bespangle can mean to cover or to mark or to become covered or marked with spots or streaks. The same distinctions in implications or connotations are found in their participial adjectives (often used as simple adjectives) spotted, spattered, sprinkled, mottled, flecked, stippled, marbled, speckled, spangled, bespangled.

Spot usually suggests either accident or a result of nature. When accident or carelessness is suggested, a staining or smirching is often connoted

{

spot a dress with mud

}

{

spot a cloth with iodine

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{

the book was spotted with grease

}

{

spotted her stockings in the rain

}

but, when the agency of art or nature is suggested, some design is usually implied that decorates, covers, or distinguishes; this use occurs mainly in the participial adjective

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spotted muslin

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{

no spotted pony is ever pure Shetland— Riker

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{

a spotted leopard

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{

a spotted orchid

}

Spatter (see also SPRINKLE) essentially implies a dispersing or scattering in fragments; in general it presupposes an action (as of boiling grease, of dashing rain, or of a person washing) that causes something to fly out in drops or bits upon something or someone

{

do not get the lard too hot, for it will spatter all over you

}

{

spray from one of the hoses spattered over the longshoremen— Pizer

}

{

his every good fortune spattered others with misfortune— Malamud

}

{

do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid?— Kipling

}

Sprinkle (see also SPRINKLE) implies an effect of or as if of scattering a liquid in small drops; the term may emphasize the numbers or frequency of tiny spots or the thin strewing of larger ones

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his ill-fitting clothes were usually sprinkled with cigarette ashes— Lubell

}

{

the massed rows of black skullcaps and white prayer shawls, sprinkled here and there with the frilly hats ... of women— Wouk

}

{

a heavily wooded section, sprinkled with small lakes— Amer. Guide Series: Pa.

}

Mottle stresses an irregular spotting (as in streaks or blotches or patches) usually with another color; therefore what is mottled tends to present a clouded or a broken appearance or a surface covered with unevenly placed spots

{

drifting clouds mottled the sez— Michener

}

{

books bound in mottled calf

}

{

his eyes were opaque as paving stones, and his cheeks a mottled gray— Kenneth Roberts

}

Fleck may imply a spot or blemish (as of the skin); usually, however, it suggests a light spotting by specks (as of snow, of color, of light, or of clouds)

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overhead the still blue is scarcely flecked by a cloud— Black

}

{

one hillside is flecked by a herd of black goats— Edmund Wilson

}

{

immature birds . . . recognizable by their dark, flecked plumage— E. A. Armstrong

}

Stipple basically refers to a technique in engraving, painting, or drawing in which dots or short touches rather than lines are used, especially to depict masses or to indicate shadows. The term is often extended to other things that suggest this technique or its effect

{

accidentally joggled his arm in such wise as to stipple ink over the coat— Perelman

}

{

sunlight that fell through the trees and stippled the sidewalks— Basso

}

{

the quail that spins out of the stippled corn to windy air— Southerly

}

{

a play stippled alternately with tenderness and dynamite— Nathan

}

Marble comes close to mottle, but it is specifically used when by intent or by nature the irregularly streaked effect of variegated marble is reproduced

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for the endpapers we use . . . handmade paper marbled by hand— Notes on The Art of Bookbinding

}

{

well-marbled beef

}

{

his uneven eyes, one blind, marbled and sunken in his skull— Malcolm Cowley

}

Speckle suggests a covering with small and often crowded spots (as of color); the term is sometimes used with a suggestion of the cause or nature of the marks

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a few drops of unenthusiastic rain ... speckled the shoulders of his coat— Charteris

}

{

his arms were speckled from wrists to biceps with the punctures of a hypodermic needle— Kobler

}

{

bright stars speckled the sky— Mansfield

}

Spangle and bespangle suggest a thick strewing with tiny sparkling bits (as of shiny metal) or with something giving a similar effect

{

an evening sheath . .. spangled with black sequins— Lois Long

}

{

the spangled palaces of sin and fancy dancing in the false West of the movies— Steinbeck

}

{

grass ... all bespangled with dewdrops— Cowper

}

{

a cold perspiration bespangled his brow— Gilbert

}

Analogous words: splash, bespatter, besprinkle, asperse (see SPRINKLE): *soil, sully, dirty, smirch, besmirch: variegate, checker, dapple, freak (see corresponding adjectives at VARIEGATED)