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''stipple'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260207202820-00-⌔

stipple - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

stipple (countable and uncountable, plural stipples)

  • (painting) The use of small dots that give the appearance of shading; the dots thus used.
    • ✤ Glory be to God for dappled things—/For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;/For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim: […]1

Verb

stipple (third-person singular simple present stipples, present participle stippling, simple past and past participle stippled)

  • (transitive) To use small dots to give the appearance of shading to.
    • ✤ Don’t you think, Major Vampyre, that eye-brow ſtippled very prettily?2
    • ✤ The worst drawings that have ever come from [Turner ’s] hands are some of this second period, on which he has spent much time and laborious thought; drawings filled with incident from one side to the other, with skies stippled into morbid blue, and warm lights set against them in violent contrast […]3
    • ✤ There were no footmarks on the ground, for each wind swept like a great brush over the sand surface, stippling the traces of the last travellers till the surface was again a pattern of innumerable tiny virgin waves.4
    • ✤ Outside the car window was a glaze of darkness stippled with the gold of infrequent mysterious lights.5
    • ✤ The biennial profusion of campaign billboards and posters stipples the land that Lady Bird wants to beautify and Lyndon yearns to own.6
    • ✤ Although he was clean-shaven, black Benday dots traced the narrow pathway of his thin mustache and the stippled edge of his jaw.7

Etymology

Probably from Dutch stippel (“small dot”), originally applied to the dots themselves and later to the technique.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈstɪpəl/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1877, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC, page 30, lines 1–3: ↩

  2. 1760, Oliver Goldsmith, “Letter XLVII. From Lien Chi Altangi, to ﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡ merchant in Amsterdam.”, in The Citizen of the World; or Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, […], volume I, London: […] [F] or the author; and sold by J. Newbery and W. Bristow, […]; J. Leake and W. Frederick, […]; B. Collins, […]; and A. M. Smart and Co. […], published 1762, →OCLC, page 209: ↩

  3. 1851, John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism ‎, New York: John Wiley, page 50: ↩

  4. 1922, T. E. Lawrence, chapter 41, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom ‎: ↩

  5. 1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 10, in Babbitt ‎: ↩

  6. 1966 October 14, “Charisma, Calluses and Cash”, in Time: ↩

  7. 1988, Edmund White, chapter 5, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994: ↩

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