stipple

American  

[stip-uhl] / ˈstɪp əl /

verb (used with object)

stipples, present (3rd person singular) stippled, past participle, past stippling present participle

1. to paint, engrave, or draw by means of dots or small touches.

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noun

1. the method of painting, engraving, etc., by stippling.

2. stippled work; a painting, engraving, or the like, executed by means of dots or small spots.

stipple British  

/ ˈstɪpəl /

verb

1. to draw, engrave, or paint using dots or flecks

2. to apply paint, powder, etc, to (something) with many light dabs

3. to give (wet paint, cement, etc) a granular effect

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noun

1. the technique of stippling or a picture produced by or using stippling

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• stippler
  noun
• unstippled
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• stippling
  present
• stippled
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• stipple
  simple
• stipples
  simple
• have stippled
  perfect
• has stippled
  perfect
• am stippling
  progressive
• are stippling
  progressive
• is stippling
  progressive
• have been stippling
  perfect progressive
• has been stippling
  perfect progressive

Past

• stippled
  simple
• had stippled
  perfect
• was stippling
  progressive
• were stippling
  progressive
• had been stippling
  perfect progressive

Future

• will stipple
  simple
• will have stippled
  perfect
• will be stippling
  progressive
• will have been stippling
  perfect progressive

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

stipple stipples stippled stippling

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

Tattoos of the Virgin Mary and crosses stipple their shoulders and wrists.

From New York Times ● Jul. 4, 2017

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

Stipp′ler, one who stipples: a coarse brush for stippling; Stipp′ling, stippled work of any kind.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various

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

The landscape of the ancient Maya is stippled with ruins whose names are unknown to scholars and whose hieroglyphic inscriptions mention scores of places the locations of which are now lost.

From New York Times ● Sep. 13, 2022

He applies a lacquer thinner to the stencil to partially dissolve it, thus yielding a stippled image.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 8, 2022

The sun had dipped too, leaving a trail of stippled oranges and purples on the horizon.

From "The Boy Who Met a Whale" by Nizrana Farook

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

Her tattoo skills have blossomed — she can draw life-like portraits on calves using a technique called stippling; a single tattoo of angel-like wings on a back can be made of millions of dots.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2019

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

But against this indefinite, vitreous background the opaque white uric cells stand out distinctly in their myriads; and the effect of this stippling is a sketchy but by no means inelegant costume.

From The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles by Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander