Word.ws English Dictionary

splatch

splatch noun: a blot or splash.

Noun

splatch (plural splatches)

  1. A blot or splash.
    • [I]t appear'd through the Microscope gray, like a great splatch of London dirt […]1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, section I

Verb

splatch (third-person singular simple present splatches, present participle splatching, simple past and past participle splatched)

  1. To mark with a splatch.
    • Stanton described Lincoln as "A long, lank creature from Illinois, wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspiration had splatched wide stains that resembled a map of the continent."1947, Kentucky State Bar Journal - Volumes 12-13, page 144
    • Where cows are headed up to the wall and are fed with turnips in winter, the place around them very soon gets splatched with earth off the roots;1892, The Wisconsin Farmer, page 260
  2. To manipulate roughly or crudely.
    • Fine distinctions, however, are wasted on Sir William Harcourt. His text is, ' We are rich and growing yearly richer,' and the more broadly splatched the facts he marshals in support of his text the more striking the effect.1893, The Investors Review - Volume 2, page 391
    • Once I had the wedge in, I had to raise the heavy hammer and let it fall with all the force I could, hoping thus to splatch off large pieces of rock.2001, Geraldine Brooks, Year of wonders: a novel of the plague, page 180
  3. To move in a manner that causes splashing or spreading of material.
    • We splatched down into the river and across it, getting quite wet, while I swore quietly and monotonously.1964, Mark Howell, Journey Through a Forgotten Empire, page 166
    • ...were anyone to have seen them stumbling under the light of the newly risen moon they would have found little splendour in the appearance of either, but Big Hugh was without doubt the most trampish and tousled of the pair with his long scruffy overcoat muddy and besmirched with filth and...1980 -, Tibor Varady, New Writing and Writers - Volume 18, →ISBN, page 99

Examples of splatch in a sentence

  • The female lays four or five eggs, of a dull white colour, splatched with brown and black, with a very hard, smooth shell.2013, John James Audubon, The Birds of America from Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories, →ISBN:
  • He tries to creep along carefully but he can't help splatching on the floor.2016, James Treadwell, Arcadia: A Novel, →ISBN, page 327:

Forms of splatch

Noun
pluralsplatches
Verb
third-person singular presentsplatches
present participlesplatching
past participlesplatched
pastsplatched

Origin of splatch

Probably imitative.

Words formed from splatch

Questions about splatch

What does splatch mean?
Splatch means a blot or splash.
How do you use splatch in a sentence?
The female lays four or five eggs, of a dull white colour, splatched with brown and black, with a very hard, smooth shell.
What part of speech is splatch?
Splatch can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of splatch?
The plural of splatch is splatches.

Words near splatch in the dictionary

  1. splat mats
  2. Splat Pack
  3. Splatatouille
  4. splatbook
  5. splatbooks
  6. splatch
  7. splatched
  8. splatcher
  9. splatchers
  10. splatches
  11. splatching

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: splatch (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-splatch.wav.

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