adjective
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irregular in quality, occurrence, intensity, etc
a patchy essay
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having or forming patches
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of patchy
Explanation
If you describe something as patchy, you mean it's uneven or irregular, like your patchy front lawn with brown spots scattered among the green tufts of grass. Patchy things can appear spotty or mottled in color, or feel rough and bumpy to the touch. If your dog gets fleas and scratches too much, his fur might be patchy. And, if the sky is speckled with clouds, it also looks patchy. You can also call something that's inconsistent patchy: "Your math homework is patchy — some days you do it all, and others you only answer one or two questions."
Vocabulary lists containing patchy
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:
The toilets are in a "pitiful" state, some without locks; internet access is patchy in classrooms, and a lack of printer ink sometimes leaves handouts unreadable, he added, his friends nodding along.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
Monday is likely to be a fairly grey day along with patchy rain and hill fog but brighter spells should develop later in the day for some areas.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
Loss-making companies that go public have an especially patchy record, according to University of Florida professor Jay Ritter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
"Unlike typical shallow reefs, it does not always form a single continuous reef structure. Instead, it can appear as patchy or scattered coral communities spread across the seafloor."
From Science Daily ● Sep. 15, 2026
But it was all Clare could do to hide his patchy fur, his ear shriveled up like a dried mushroom, his missing left eye.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
The rain is likely to be lighter and patchier in the Midlands, southern and east England with just a few millimetres expected and some areas could miss out altogether.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
"In some catchments where permafrost has become patchier, weathering-driven carbon uptake was large enough to offset or even exceed river CO2 emissions."
From Science Daily ● Jun. 20, 2026
And returns on investment have been patchier because of its aggressive spending.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
Surveillance outside of farms was even patchier than on them, and bird flu tests have been hard to get.
From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2024
Despite being undead, he’d grown into adulthood: his fur patchier, his whiskers more snarled, his eye socket wider.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
The true severity of the problem isn’t always easy to ascertain, because, almost by definition, things tend to be worst in the places where record-keeping is patchiest.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 25, 2015
The Collegiate Chorale lent the music an epic quality; still, its twinkling palette aside, this was the patchiest and least satisfying of the distillations.
From New York Times ● Aug. 14, 2011
It didn’t take long for her to select the most crooked, most pathetic, patchiest pine tree in the bunch.
From "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser
Closely confined between the Rockies to the right and the Selkirks to the west, the river held undeviatingly to its general northwesterly course, with only the patchiest of flats on either side.
From Down the Columbia by Lewis R. (Lewis Ransome) Freeman
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