stipple
Americanverb (used with object)
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stipples,
present (3rd person singular)
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stippled,
past participle, past
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stippling
present participle
noun
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the method of painting, engraving, etc., by stippling.
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stippled work; a painting, engraving, or the like, executed by means of dots or small spots.
verb
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to draw, engrave, or paint using dots or flecks
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to apply paint, powder, etc, to (something) with many light dabs
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to give (wet paint, cement, etc) a granular effect
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stipplesimple
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stipplessimple
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have stippledperfect
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has stippledperfect
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am stipplingprogressive
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are stipplingprogressive
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is stipplingprogressive
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have been stipplingperfect progressive
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has been stipplingperfect progressive
Past
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stippledsimple
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had stippledperfect
-
was stipplingprogressive
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were stipplingprogressive
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had been stipplingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stipple
1660–70; < Dutch stippelen, frequentative of stippen to dot, derivative of stip dot
Explanation
If you stipple something, that means you add tiny dots of color or texture, such as using a special painting tool to stipple a plain wall with dots of a different color to make it look more interesting. The verb stipple came into English from the Dutch word stippelen, meaning "to spot or dot.” Artist stipple paint onto their canvases and from the distance, the dots look like a field of flowers. You can also stipple metal, by poking it with a tool that creates little circular dents — that look like dots — to give it an artistic look.
Vocabulary lists containing stipple
Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Frightful's Mountain
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A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
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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:
He received the honor of a Journal stipple portrait in 1985, after he was pushed out of the company that he co-founded.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
Microscopic chasms forming a sea of conical jagged peaks stipple the surface of a material called black silicon.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 16, 2024
Also known as acoustical stipple ceilings, they were once a popular choice for their ability to absorb sound and hide imperfections.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 2, 2024
I introduced a forehead piece to the existing Stage 3 look and added old-age stipple around the eyes, along with eyebrow hair pieces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2024
He’s wearing the uniform of the Guardians, but his cap is tilted at a jaunty angle and his sleeves are rolled to the elbow, showing his forearms, tanned but with a stipple of dark hairs.
From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
And that is not even her breeding plumage, when her eyes turn aquamarine, with matching stipples around the edges, and the inside of her mouth turns cobalt blue.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 21, 2024
In one grouping, she experiments with iterative ways of filling the squares, or shading a given area with stripes and stipples.
From New York Times ● Feb. 1, 2023
The 26-year-old tenor saxophonist has set most of these original compositions at a medium-fast tempo, and her saxophone stipples and scampers, gesturing toward the influence of the alto saxophonist Steve Lehman.
From New York Times ● May 11, 2018
His globs and stipples and smears — seemingly brisk and impulsive, but painstakingly applied and endlessly revised — ravished.
From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2017
With an oh, for the feel of the salt sea spray as it stipples the guffy's cheek!
From Something Else Again by Franklin P. (Franklin Pierce) Adams
Social-media users are savaging promotions depicting unnaturally regular greens, shrimp like O-rings, unhealthily slick noodles and stippled chicken.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Every flat surface and hidey-hole of this bridge is stuffed and stippled with nests.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 21, 2024
At first, we’re captivated by the ornately decorative beauty of the Iyi people’s look and dress: elaborate hairstyles, dazzlingly patterned clothing, faces designed with glowingly stippled white paint.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2023
In front of me, a sheer wall of stippled gneiss.
From New York Times ● Aug. 22, 2022
I took the emptiness of Abuelo’s room inside myself, the cold, stippled walls desolate and hard.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
Instead, Nicole asked that we use stippling to create a gradient and a ‘sunset’ effect.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 2022
The sun filtered through a parade of maple and ash beyond the trailhead, stippling the wildflowers below.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 10, 2021
Patients sign up online, paying an average of $600 each for a stippling of shots across their foreheads.”
From Fox News ● Jun. 4, 2020
Compare stippling the pages with water spots, unable to put your arms down, with balancing an ashtray on the rim of the tub, unable to put one arm down.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 25, 2019
It will be seen that these come with and without dot stippling.
From Mohave Pottery by Michaell J. Harner
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