Word.ws English Dictionary

mottle

Syllables: mot·tle/ˈmɒt.əl//ˈmɑ.təl/

mottle verb: to mark with blotches of different color, or shades of color, as if stained; to spot; to maculate.

Verb

mottle (third-person singular simple present mottles, present participle mottling, simple past and past participle mottled)

  1. To mark with blotches of different color, or shades of color, as if stained; to spot; to maculate.
    • Between the grey mist of rainclouds the sun suddenly appeared to mottle the wet asphalt of Marble Arch in patches of silver and ebony.1936, F.J. Thwaites, chapter XXII, in The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards, published 1940, page 214

Noun

mottle (countable and uncountable, plural mottles)

  1. (countable) A distinguishing blotch of colour.
  2. A mottled or spotted pattern.
    • The most common symptom is a mild mottle on the youngest leaves of infected plants.
    • SLRSV, being mostly latent in strawberries and other fruit crops, is of very minor importance. It can cause some mottle and decline in certain strawberry cultivars.1992, Quarantine Pests for Europe, Wallingford, Oxfordshire: CAB International, →ISBN, page 972
  3. Any of several species of genus Logania of butterflies, found from Burma to the Philippines and New Guinea.

mottle meaning in Urdu and Bengali

mottle in Urdu

رنگ برنگے دھبےلگانا

mottle in Bengali

চিত্রবিচিত্র করা, ছোপ ছোপ দাগ দেওয়া

Forms of mottle

Verb
third-person singular presentmottles
present participlemottling
past participlemottled
pastmottled
Noun
pluralmottles

Origin of mottle

1670-80. Probably back-formation from motley.

Words formed from mottle

Words that rhyme with mottle

Questions about mottle

What does mottle mean?
Mottle means to mark with blotches of different color, or shades of color, as if stained; to spot; to maculate.
What is mottle in Urdu?
Mottle in Urdu is رنگ برنگے دھبےلگانا. See Mottle meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is mottle?
Mottle can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce mottle?
Mottle is pronounced /ˈmɒt.əl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of mottle?
The past tense of mottle is mottled.

Words near mottle in the dictionary

  1. mottettos
  2. motti
  3. Mottingham
  4. mottis
  5. Mottisfont
  6. mottle
  7. mottled
  8. mottled bear
  9. mottled bears
  10. mottled berryhunter
  11. mottled berryhunters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mottle (page history and authors); mottle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mottle (Bengali Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mottle.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-mottle.wav.

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