| 释义 |
mottled, ppl. a.|ˈmɒt(ə)ld|
[f. prec. + -ed1.]
1. Dappled with spots or blotches; marked with spots, streaks, or patches of different colour.
1676Lond. Gaz. No. 1143/4 A little motled Bitch, with yellow motles from head to toe. c1765T. Flloyd Tartarian T. (1785) 114/2, I put a pair of..baskets on a mottled goat. 1794Herschel in Phil. Trans. LXXXV. 71 The mottled appearance of the sun is owing to an inequality in the level of the surface. 1808Times 29 Feb. 1/2 Followed a Person, a Mottled Pointer Dog. 1813Gentl. Mag. LXXXIII. i. 95 Soap..Mottled 114s..per Doz. 1848Thackeray Bk. Snobs xxvii, Scrubbing.. Polly's dumpy nose with mottled soap. 1868Princess Alice Mem. 29 Dec. (1884) 207 My babies..look so mottled and healthy. 1874Garrod & Baxter Mat. Med. (1880) 330 The leaves are..pale green when fresh, mottled-brown when dry.
b. transf. and fig.
1857Buckle Civiliz. I. xiii. 744 The real lack of ideas which their barbarous and mottled dialect strives to hide. 1891J. Strong New Era 201 A mottled population, containing the worst elements of society.
2. Special collocations: mottled baboon, the common baboon, Cynocephalus papio; mottled calf, a variegated leather used for book-binding; mottled iron, a soft kind of cast iron; mottled grampus (see quot.); mottled owl, a North American owl, Scops asio; mottled pig, a kind of pig-iron (see quot.). Also in collectors' names for many British moths, as mottled beauty, bran, carpet, grey, etc. (see Rennie Butterflies & Moths 1832, passim).
1802Bingley Anim. Biog. (1813) I. 73 The Common or *Mottled Baboon.
1895J. W. Zaehnsdorf Hist. Bookbinding 27 *Mottled Calf.—Pale-coloured calf, decorated by the sprinkling of acids in drops.
1884G. B. Goode, etc. Nat. Hist. Aquatic Anim. 14 On the California coast occurs the Whiteheaded or *Mottled Grampus, Grampus Stearnsii Dall.
1836–41Brande Chem. (ed. 5) 763 Gray or *mottled-iron is softer and less brittle. 1884W. H. Greenwood Steel & Iron iv. 48 The characteristic dappled appearance peculiar to mottled iron.
1781Latham Gen. Synopsis Birds I. i. 126 *Mottled Owl.
1880Encycl. Brit. XIII. 284/2 Sometimes a pig will solidify partly as white iron partly as grey..; such iron is known as ‘*mottled pig’.
1749B. Wilkes Eng. Moths & Butterflies 36 The *mottled Umber-moth.
Hence ˈmottledness, mottled condition.
1830J. Wilson in Blackw. Mag. XXVIII. 386 The red and brown mottledness o' its striped and starry beauty. |