stipple
/ˈstɪpəl/
stipple noun: the use of small dots that give the appearance of shading; the dots thus used.
Noun
stipple (countable and uncountable, plural stipples)
- The use of small dots that give the appearance of shading; the dots thus used.
- Glory be to God for dappled things— / For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; / For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim: […]1877, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC, page 30, lines 1–3
Verb
stipple (third-person singular simple present stipples, present participle stippling, simple past and past participle stippled)
- To use small dots to give the appearance of shading to.
- Don’t you think, Major Vampyre, that eye-brow ſtippled very prettily?1760, Oliver Goldsmith, “Letter XLVII. From Lien Chi Altangi, to ***** merchant in Amsterdam.”, in The Citizen of the World; or Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, […], volume I, London: […] [F]or...
- The worst drawings that have ever come from [Turner’s] hands are some of this second period, on which he has spent much time and laborious thought; drawings filled with incident from one side to the other, with skies stippled into morbid blue, and warm lights set against them in violent contrast […]1851, John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism, New York: John Wiley, page 50
stipple meaning in Tamil and Bengali
stipple in Tamil
- புள்ளியிட்டு நிரப்பல்
stipple in Bengali
- বিন্দু দিয়ে অঙ্কন, অলঙ্করণ করা
Examples of stipple in a sentence
- Outside the car window was a glaze of darkness stippled with the gold of infrequent mysterious lights.1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 10, in Babbitt:
- The biennial profusion of campaign billboards and posters stipples the land that Lady Bird wants to beautify and Lyndon yearns to own.1966 October 14, “Charisma, Calluses and Cash”, in Time:
- Although he was clean-shaven, black Benday dots traced the narrow pathway of his thin mustache and the stippled edge of his jaw.1988, Edmund White, chapter 5, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994:
Forms of stipple
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | stipples |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | stipples |
| present participle | stippling |
| past participle | stippled |
| past | stippled |
Origin of stipple
Probably from Dutch stippel (“small dot”), originally applied to the dots themselves and later to the technique.
Words formed from stipple
Questions about stipple
- What does stipple mean?
- Stipple means the use of small dots that give the appearance of shading; the dots thus used.
- What is stipple in Tamil?
- Stipple in Tamil is புள்ளியிட்டு நிரப்பல். See Stipple meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use stipple in a sentence?
- Outside the car window was a glaze of darkness stippled with the gold of infrequent mysterious lights.
- What part of speech is stipple?
- Stipple can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce stipple?
- Stipple is pronounced /ˈstɪpəl/.
- What is the plural of stipple?
- The plural of stipple is stipples.
Words near stipple in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: stipple (page history and authors); stipple (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stipple (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-stipple.wav.
Cite this entry: “stipple.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stipple. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.