blotch
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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blotches,
present (3rd person singular)
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blotched,
past participle, past
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blotching
present participle
adjective
noun
verb
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to become or cause to become marked by such discoloration
-
(intr) (of a pen or ink) to write or flow unevenly in blotches
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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blotchsimple
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blotchessimple
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have blotchedperfect
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has blotchedperfect
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am blotchingprogressive
-
are blotchingprogressive
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is blotchingprogressive
-
have been blotchingperfect progressive
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has been blotchingperfect progressive
Past
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blotchedsimple
-
had blotchedperfect
-
was blotchingprogressive
-
were blotchingprogressive
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had been blotchingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of blotch
Explanation
A blotch is an uneven spot or blemish, like the itchy blotches you get all over your arms after tangling with the poison ivy in your back yard. Etymologists guess that blotch comes from blot, "spot or stain," influenced by patch — so you can think of a blotch as a patchy stain. The word is frequently used to describe skin that's discolored, like the blotches you get on your cheeks after crying, or the painful blotch on your back where you forgot to apply sunblock. Use it as a verb, too: "The ketchup squirted from his hamburger and blotched his new white shirt."
Vocabulary lists containing blotch
Selection Vocabulary 4, Unit 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It would be an unavoidable blotch at the bottom of James’ 23-season resume that otherwise is highlighted by a 3-1 comeback against the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Finals.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2026
I also had a little red blotch of skin, but as I said, my thighs rub together, so maybe it was nothing?
From Slate ● Mar. 13, 2024
But the second image included a big blotch, a blast zone of disturbed dust radiating outward more than 10 miles that had not been in the first image.
From New York Times ● Oct. 27, 2022
But Otte held them to four runs, with just a three-run fifth by Kennewick a major blotch on the right-hander’s night.
From Seattle Times ● May 28, 2022
Gum doesn’t blotch the sidewalks, it doesn't smell like pee, and there aren’t areas to avoid once the sun sets.
From "The House That Lou Built" by Mae Respicio
The house’s roof, the front steps and the driveway were spattered with white blotches, as if the area had been the site of a fierce paintball battle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
As he recounted the odyssey, more than 20 years of practice could be charted through various blotches and burn scars on his arms.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
But other populations are bright green and lack blotches, making them look almost identical to the redtail pit viper.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 21, 2026
In its state of abandoned tear-down, the venue offers melodious visual rhymes: electrical cords dangling from the ceiling ape Wool’s snarls of found-wire sculpture; crumbling plaster mirrors the attitudinal blotches of his oils and inks.
From New York Times ● May 2, 2024
The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks.
From "The Old Man and The Sea" by Ernest Hemingway
My notebook pages are wet and blotched by water!
From Salon ● May 28, 2025
Creamy white blooms blotched with maroon centers flood the late spring garden with sweet perfume.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 9, 2024
An example of the founder effect is the cyclical dominance of three throat-color patterns in side- blotched lizards.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Altered taqpep genes were already known to cause blotched tabby patterns in cats, as well as king cheetahs’ unusually large spots and stripes.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 21, 2021
“But how, I cannot say. “Ask him\” shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tearstained face to Flarry.
From "Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets" by J. K. Rowling
Between those two ranges, in central Myanmar, researchers found an unusual population of green snakes with different amounts of blotching.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 21, 2026
In 2005, in the same journal, Annette Upfal gave a name to the blotching of the face—idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura—and proposed that Austen had died from Hodgkin’s disease.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 5, 2017
The blotching spread until it brought about the depigmentation suddenly observed by Will White after his bath.
From Time Magazine Archive
“You just cut that stuff quick,” snarled the man rising to his feet, his face blotching red.
From The River Motor Boat Boys on the St. Lawrence The Lost Channel by Harry Gordon
The coloured picture will convey a far better idea as to the colouring and blotching of the flowers than any printed description.
From Beautiful Bulbous Plants For the Open Air by John Weathers
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
