Blotch

/blɒtʃ/ · noun

Meaning

An uneven patch of color or discoloration..

Definitions by Sense

1. An uneven patch of color or discoloration.
2. An irregularly shaped area.
3. (figuratively) Imperfection; blemish on one’s reputation, stain.
4. Any of various crop diseases that cause the plant to form spots.
5. A bright or dark spot on old film caused by dirt and loss of the gelatin covering the film, due to age and poor film quality.
6. A dark spot on the skin; a pustule.
7. (slang) Blotting paper.
8. (transitive) To mark with blotches.

Example Sentences

1711, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator, London: J. & R. Tonson, 12th edition, Volume I, No. 16, p. 68, […] in healing those Blotches and Tumours which break out in the body […]

1921, Wallace Stevens, Sur Ma Guzzla Gracile, Palace of the Babies, in Poetry, Volume 19, No. 1, The disbeliever walked the moonlit place, Outside the gates of hammered serafin, Observing the moon-blotches on the walls.

Since the day in which this reformation began, by how many strange and critical turns has it been perfected and handed down, if not, entirely without spot or wrinkle,—at least, without great blotches or marks of anility.

Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer than the limbs of infancy; […] it clothed the rough turnip-field with whiteness, and made the sheep look like dark blotches;

At Coleman's Hill, the upper beds consist of yellowish, soft, gritty sandstone, containing some small calcareous fragments, a few pebbles of quartz, blotches of red shale, and fragments of sandstone with impressions of stems of plants.

His shirt showed big blotches of moisture, and the sweat was rolling in clear drops along the creases in his brown neck.

Microscopic and sometimes macroscopic examination of the apparently healthy intervening tissue may reveal the fungus connecting the blotches of diseased tissue.

Evil places where the wind whistles and the dust grates, places that are blotches of shadow, blotches of rust, blotches of oil: innumerable blotches.

Synonyms for blotch

Antonyms for blotch

Related Words

Word Forms

• blotches
• blotching
• blotched

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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