Word.ws English Dictionary

dappling

dappling is the present participle and gerund of dapple.

Meaning of dapple

Verb

dapple (third-person singular simple present dapples, present participle dappling, simple past and past participle dappled)

  1. To mark or become marked with mottling or spots.
    • Jt ſeemes it is in faſhion vvith you to ſugar your papers vvith Carnation phraſes, and dapple your ſpeeches vvith nevv quodled vvords.1647, Theodore de la Guard [pseudonym; Nathaniel Ward], The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America. […], London: […] J[ohn] D[ever] & R[obert] I[bbitson] for Stephen Bowtell, […], →OCLC, page 77

See all 4 meanings of dapple

Noun

dappling (plural dapplings)

  1. A dappled pattern.
    • The skin was somewhat pigmented, especially in certain regions, while over the whole there appeared whitish, rounded or oval mottlings or dapplings, most obvious where the surrounding cuticle was most deeply colored.1910, The Year Book of Dermatology, page 124

Forms of dappling

pluraldapplings

Questions about dappling

What does dappling mean?
Dappling means a dappled pattern.
What is dappling the present participle and gerund of?
Dappling is the present participle and gerund of dapple.
What part of speech is dappling?
Dappling is a noun.
What is the plural of dappling?
The plural of dappling is dapplings.

Words near dappling in the dictionary

  1. dappled
  2. dappled light
  3. dappledness
  4. dappleness
  5. dapples
  6. dappling
  7. dapplings
  8. DApps
  9. dappy
  10. Dappy hat
  11. daprodustat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dappling (page history and authors); dapple (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dappling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dappling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.