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freckle

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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The noun is derived from Late Middle English fracle, frekel, frekle (“freckle; pimple; fleck of colour in a stone”),[1] a variant of frakne, freken (“freckle; other skin blemish”)[2][3] (whence frecken (“(obsolete except UK, dialectal) freckle”)),[4] from Old Norse freknur pl (compare Faroese frøknur, Danish fregner, Swedish fräknar),[5] an s-less variant of Proto-Germanic *sprekalą (“freckle”) (compare Middle High German spreckel, dialectal Norwegian sprekla), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)preg- (“to sprinkle, strew”), an extension of *sper-. Compare spark, sprack, and spry.

The verb is derived from the noun.[6]

cognates

Pronunciation

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Noun

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freckle (plural freckles)

  2. A small brownish or reddish pigmentation spot on the surface of the skin.
    Synonyms: (freckles) dirt, ephelis, freck, lentigo, summer spot
    Coordinate terms: beauty mark, sun kiss
    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.
  4. Any small spot which has a different colour from its background.
  5. (Australia)
    1. A small sweet consisting of a flattish mound of chocolate covered in hundreds and thousands.
    2. (slang) The anus.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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freckle (third-person singular simple present freckles, present participle freckling, simple past and past participle freckled)

  1. (transitive) To cover (someone; or something, such as the skin) with freckles (noun sense 1 and noun sense 2).
  2. (intransitive) To become covered with freckles.

Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

References

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  1. ^ “frakles, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “fraknes, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ “freckle, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2026; “freckle, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  4. ^ Joseph Wright, editor (1900), “FRECKEN, sb.”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume II (D–G), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 489, column 2.
  5. ^ “frecken, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2025.
  6. ^ “freckle, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2025.; “freckle, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

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