blotches

Noun

blotch (plural blotches)

1. An uneven patch of color or discoloration.
   • […] in healing those Blotches and Tumours which break out in the body […]1711, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator, London: J. & R. Tonson, 12th edition, Volume I, No. 16, p. 68
2. An irregularly shaped area.
   • At Coleman's Hill, the upper beds consist of yellowish, soft, gritty sandstone, containing some small calcareous fragments, a few pebbles of quartz, blotches of red shale, and fragments of sandstone with impressions of stems of plants.1839, The Silurian System
3. (figuratively) Imperfection; blemish on one’s reputation, stain.
   • There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.1921, Warren G. Harding, Inaugural address, in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States: from George Washington to Barack Obama, Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1989
4. Any of various crop diseases that cause the plant to form spots.
   • The fungus causing blotch lives through the winter in the cankers which it has developed on twigs, water sprouts, and fruit spurs.1926, John William Roberts, Leslie Pierce, Apple blotch, page 3
5. A bright or dark spot on old film caused by dirt and loss of the gelatin covering the film, due to age and poor film quality.
   • Characteristics of blotches are that they seldom appear at the same spatial location in consecutive frames, they tend to be smooth (little texture), and they usually have intensity values that are very different from the original contents they cover.1999, Jim Byrnes, Signal Processing for Multimedia, →ISBN, page 173
6. A dark spot on the skin; a pustule.

See all 9 meanings of blotch