mottled

US/ˈmɑt əld/

adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,785 of 15,258mostly written

Mottled means marked with patches of different shades. Mottled skin, a mottled leaf, mottled grey.

The patches are irregular and blended, which is what separates it from spotted or speckled. Mottled skin in a sick child is a warning sign worth acting on. In plants it can mean a virus. The word comes from motley, the many-coloured cloth.

Definitions of mottled

1adjectivemottledMarked with patches of different shades.C2
“The old man's hands were mottled with brown spots.”

mottled is a quality of marking.

Where it comes from

Probably a back-formation from motley, the parti-coloured cloth worn by a jester.

1670-80 mottle + ed.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Colours & Patterns

Practise this word

mottled in the wild

The mottled duck (Anas fulvigula) or mottled mallard is a medium-sized species of dabbling duck.
Mottled duck
Along the Gulf of Mexico coast, the mottled duck is one of the most frequently banded waterfowl.
Mottled duck
The mottled beauty (Alcis repandata) is a moth of the family Geometridae.
Mottled beauty
The beet armyworm or small mottled willow moth (Spodoptera exigua) is one of the best-known agricultural pest insects.
Beet armyworm
In the British Isles, where it is an introduced species and not known to breed, the adult moth is known as the small mottled willow moth.
Beet armyworm

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

← Vocabulary