Word.ws English Dictionary

piebald

/ˈpaɪ.bɔːld/US/ˈpaɪ.bɔld/

piebald adjective: spotted or blotched, especially in black and white.

piebald: spotted or blotched, especially in black and white
Image: Evelyn Simak, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

piebald (comparative more piebald, superlative most piebald)

  1. Spotted or blotched, especially in black and white.
    • […] she kept several piebald mice and a restless revolving squirrel.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC
    • This figure was clad in tweeds of a piebald check, with a pink tie, a sharp collar and protuberant yellow boots.1912 November – 1914 September, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “(please specify the page)”, in The Wisdom of Father Brown, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, →OCLC
  2. (figuratively) Of mixed character, heterogeneous.
    • And at the present day, the wanton introduction of scientific terms from the Greek and Latin, and of phrases from the French, threatens to render our tongue still more piebald, heterogeneous and unwieldy.1839, Charles Hodge, Henry Boynton Smith, “The Origin and Variations of the English Language”, in The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, volume XI, page 544
    • Hence you will make the piebald Church more piebald than ever.1864, T. E. Espin, Supply and Training of Ministers, in Church of England, Report of the Proceedings of the Church Congress [1863], page 67

Noun

piebald (plural piebalds)

  1. An animal with piebald coloration.
    • Our neighbour's fancy was for piebald horses, and so strong was it that he wished not to have any one-coloured animals in his herd, despite the fact that he bred horses for sale and that piebalds were not so popular as horses of a more normal colouring.1918, William Henry Hudson, Far Away and Long Ago, page 91
    • “She always performs really well,” she says, showing me TikToks of her lip-syncing next to Luna, an elderly, noble-looking piebald with mournful brown eyes.2026 May 28, Amelia Gentleman, “The strange surveilled life of Piper Rockelle: why did a former child influencer decide to go on OnlyFans?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

piebald meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

piebald in Tamil

கருப்பும் வெள்ளையும் கலந்த, கருமை நிறவகை, குதிரைகளில் முறையற்ற வெண்மை

piebald in Urdu

ابلق, دھبوں والا

piebald in Malayalam

pied, multicoloured, particoloured
വിവിധവർണ്ണമായ, നാനാവർണ്ണ, പലനിറമുള്ള, നാനാവർണ്ണങ്ങളോടു കൂടിയ, ചിത്ര, അസമന

piebald in Kannada

ಬಣ್ಣಬಣ್ಣದ, ಮಿಶ್ರವರ್ಣದ, ಬೆರಕೆಯ, ಸಂಕರದ
More languagesFewer languages
piebald in Punjabi
ਡਬਾ ḍabā, ڈبا ḍbā
piebald in Sanskrit
पृषत् pṛṣat
piebald in Tagalog
hubero
piebald in Persian
ابلک ablak, ابلق ablaq, پیسه pise

Examples of piebald in a sentence

  • We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, and a wild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
  • Of course my sister didn’t know that, but she knew it very distinctly when she turned a sharp corner and found herself in a mixed company of camels, piebald horses, and canary-coloured vans.1914, Saki [pseudonym; Hector Hugh Munro], “A defensive diamond”, in Beasts and Super-Beasts […], London: John Lane, The Bodley Head […]...
  • It'll brush off." He patted ineffectually at his piebald shirt.1965, Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone, page 20:
  • Usually, however, the hitcher was standing exactly where she'd first passed him, his arm perhaps just marginally less erect, his clothing (if rain was setting in) just that little bit more piebald.2001, Michel Faber, Under the Skin, page 4:

Forms of piebald

Adjective
comparativemore piebald
superlativemost piebald
Noun
pluralpiebalds

Origin of piebald

From pie (“magpie”) + bald (“having white patches or blazes”). Compare typologically Polish srokaty < sroka.

Words formed from piebald

Phrases with piebald

Questions about piebald

What does piebald mean?
Piebald means spotted or blotched, especially in black and white.
What is piebald in Tamil?
Piebald in Tamil is கருப்பும் வெள்ளையும் கலந்த, கருமை நிறவகை, குதிரைகளில் முறையற்ற வெண்மை. See Piebald meaning in Tamil.
How do you use piebald in a sentence?
We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, and a wild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks.
What part of speech is piebald?
Piebald can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce piebald?
Piebald is pronounced /ˈpaɪ.bɔːld/ (UK).

Words near piebald in the dictionary

  1. pie-warmer
  2. pie-warmers
  3. pie-wipe
  4. pie-wipes
  5. piebaking
  6. piebald
  7. piebald dolphin
  8. piebald dolphins
  9. piebaldism
  10. piebaldness
  11. piebalds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: piebald (page history and authors); piebald (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); piebald (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); piebald (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); piebald (Kannada 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-piebald.wav.

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