Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A speck or small spot, as a natural dot of color on skin, plumage, or foliage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A little speck or spot; a speckled marking; the state of being speckled: as, yellow with patches of speckle.
  • noun Color; hence, kind; sort.
  • To mark with specks or spots; fleck; speck; spot.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A little or spot in or anything, of a different substance or color from that of the thing itself.
  • transitive verb To mark with small spots of a different color from that of the rest of the surface; to variegate with spots of a different color from the ground or surface.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small spot or speck on the skin, plumage or foliage.
  • noun physics The random distribution of light when it is scattered by a rough surface.
  • verb To mark with speckles.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb mark with small spots
  • verb produce a mottled effect
  • noun a small contrasting part of something

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English spakle.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

The noun is from Middle Dutch spekkel; the verb was later coined from the noun, in the late 16th century.

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