blotched

English

WOTD – 30 June 2021

Etymology

From blotch +‎ -ed.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /blɒtʃt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /blɑt͡ʃt/
• Rhymes: -ɒtʃt

Adjective

blotched (comparative more blotched, superlative most blotched)

1. Covered in blotches (“uneven patches of colour or discolouration”).

   Synonyms: blotchy, spotted, spotty

   Antonyms: blotchless, unblotched

   • 1743, anonymous author, A Description of Holland; or, the Present State of the United Provinces‎^[1], London: J. & P. Knapton, page 52:

     The Dutch think no People are so much troubled with the Scurvy as they: But they mistake. There are more blotched Faces in one Town in England, than in the whole Dutch Province [...]

   • 1845, Charles Dickens, The Cricket on the Hearth, Chirp the Second,^[2]

     The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discoloured, walls blotched and bare of plaster here and there, high crevices unstopped and widening every day, beams mouldering and tending downward.

   • 1911 October, Edith Wharton, chapter I, in Ethan Frome (The Scribner Library; SL8), New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 41:

     Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above the wash-stand.

Derived terms

• side-blotched lizard

Translations

covered in blotches

Verb

blotched

1. simple past and past participle of blotch

Anagrams

• Bechtold