fleck
Americannoun
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a speck; a small bit.
a fleck of dirt.
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a spot or small patch of color, light, etc..
the dapple mare with flecks of gray.
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a spot or mark on the skin, as a freckle.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a small marking or streak; speckle
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a small particle; speck
a fleck of dust
verb
Other Word Forms
- fleckless adjective
- flecklessly adverb
- flecky adjective
- unflecked adjective
Etymology
Origin of fleck
1350–1400; Middle English flekked spotted; akin to Old Norse flekkr spot, streak, Old High German flec ( German Fleck ), Middle Low German, Middle Dutch vlecken to soil
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.
A nanoparticle is a fleck of material ranging in size approximately between 1 and 100 nanometers.
From Science Daily • Apr. 30, 2024
Mercifully just south of the Atlantic's Hurricane Alley, Trinidad appears on the map like a small fleck of land that has been chipped off the coast of Venezuela.
From Salon • Jun. 18, 2023
When they dialed the pressure back up to as little as 0.3 gigapascals, the blue fleck turned pink as the electrical resistance plunged to zero.
From Science Magazine • Mar. 8, 2023
It’s an economy that makes me feel like the zillionth scampering fleck in some global ant farm.
From New York Times • Feb. 17, 2022
The right eye had one more fleck of yellow.
From "A Boy Called Bat" by Elana K. Arnold
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.
