stipple

English

Etymology

Probably from Dutch stippel (“small dot”), originally applied to the dots themselves and later to the technique.

Noun

stipple (countable and uncountable, plural stipples)

1. (painting) The use of small dots that give the appearance of shading; the dots thus used.
   • 1877, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC, page 30, lines 1–3:

     Glory be to God for dappled things— / For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; / For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim: […]

Translations

the use of small dots that give the appearance of shading

• Bulgarian: пунктир m (punktir)
• German: Tüpfelung f, Punktierung f, Kornrasterung f, Sprenkelung f

Verb

stipple (third-person singular simple present stipples, present participle stippling, simple past and past participle stippled)

1. (transitive) To use small dots to give the appearance of shading to.
   • c. 1760, Oliver Goldsmith, The citizen of the world: or, letters from a Chinese philosopher, residing in London, to his friends in the east‎^[1], Letter 48:

     Don’t you think, Major Vampyre, that eye-brow stippled very prettily?

   • 1851, John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism‎^[2], New York: John Wiley, page 50:

     The worst drawings that have ever come from [ Turner’s] hands are some of this second period, on which he has spent much time and laborious thought; drawings filled with incident from one side to the other, with skies stippled into morbid blue, and warm lights set against them in violent contrast […]

   • 1922, T. E. Lawrence, chapter 41, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom‎^[3]:

     There were no footmarks on the ground, for each wind swept like a great brush over the sand surface, stippling the traces of the last travellers till the surface was again a pattern of innumerable tiny virgin waves.

   • 1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 10, in Babbitt‎^[4]:

     Outside the car window was a glaze of darkness stippled with the gold of infrequent mysterious lights.

   • 1966 October 14, “Charisma, Calluses and Cash”, in Time:

     The biennial profusion of campaign billboards and posters stipples the land that Lady Bird wants to beautify and Lyndon yearns to own.

   • 1988, Edmund White, chapter 5, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994:

     Although he was clean-shaven, black Benday dots traced the narrow pathway of his thin mustache and the stippled edge of his jaw.

Translations

to use small dots to give the appearance of shading to

• Bulgarian: нанасям пунктир (nanasjam punktir)
• German: tüpfeln (de), sprenkeln (de)

References

• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Stipple”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes IX, Part 1 (Si–St), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 975, column 1.

Anagrams

• Tipples, tipples