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fleck

UK/flɛk/US/flɛk/
nounC12 meaningsRare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,474 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: flecks, flecked, flecking

A fleck is a very small patch of colour. A speck, a spot, a fleck of paint on a sleeve.

It suits things scattered rather than solid, so a fleck of grey in dark hair and flecks of foam on the sea are both natural. It takes of. The verb is nearly always passive, since something is flecked with a colour, and that construction is very common in descriptive writing. A speck is the neutral word for the same size, and a fleck usually implies colour specifically.

Definitions of fleck

  1. 1nounfleckA small patch or particle of colour.C1

    “There were flecks of white in his beard.”

  2. 2verbmarkTo mark with small patches of colour.C1

    “The eggs were flecked with brown.”

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *flekka-

  2. Old Norse

    flekkr — spot

  3. Middle English

    *flekk

  4. English, today

    fleck

From Middle English flekk, flekke (attested in Middle English flekked (“spotted, flecked”)), from Old Norse flekkr (“spot”), from Proto-Germanic flekka-. Cognate with Dutch vlek, German Fleck, Swedish fläck.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire

First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word