freckle
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English freken, frekel, from Old Norse freknur pl (compare Faroese frøknur, Swedish fräknar, Danish fregner), s-less variant of Old English sprecel from Proto-Germanic *sprekalą (“freckle”) (compare dialectal Norwegian sprekla, Middle High German spreckel), from Proto-Indo-European *sp(h)er(e)g- (“to strew, sprinkle”). Cognate with Albanian fruth (“measles”). More at spark. Related to spry, sprack.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /ˈfɹɛkəl/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -ɛkəl
Noun
[edit]freckle (plural freckles)
- A small brownish or reddish pigmentation spot on the surface of the skin.
- Steve has brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles on his cheeks and nose.
- c. 1920s-1930s, Charlotte Druitt Cole, Runaway Jane:
- The rabbits came out from their burrows to peep, / The wind whispered, "Hush! little Jane's gone to sleep!" / And the spiders came spinning a curtain of lace, / Lest the sun should make freckles on Jane's pretty face.
- 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 171:
- Nurse Cramer had a cute nose and a radiant, blooming complexion dotted with fetching sprays of adorable freckles that Yossarian detested.
- Any small spot or discoloration.
- (Australia) A small sweet consisting of a flattish mound of chocolate covered in hundreds and thousands.
- (Australia, slang) The anus.
Synonyms
[edit]Coordinate terms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]small pigmentation spot on the skin
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Verb
[edit]freckle (third-person singular simple present freckles, present participle freckling, simple past and past participle freckled)
- (transitive) To cover with freckles.
- (intransitive) To become covered with freckles.
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]cover with freckles
become covered with freckles
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Translations to be checked
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old Norse
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 2-syllable words
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- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɛkəl
- Rhymes:English/ɛkəl/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with usage examples
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- Australian English
- English slang
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- en:Skin