brindled
English
A brindled cow
Etymology
An alteration of brinded, probably by association with speckled, grizzled etc.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈbɹɪndəld/
Adjective
brindled (comparative more brindled, superlative most brindled)
- of a brownish, tawny or gray colour, with streaks or spots; streaky, spotted
- 1725, Homer; [Alexander Pope], transl., “Book 10”, in The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume V, London: […] Bernard Lintot, OCLC 8736646:
- The palace in a woody vale they found,
High raised of stone; a shaded space around;
Where mountain wolves and brindled lions roam,
(By magic tamed,) familiar to the dome.
- 1853, Melville, Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!:
- All round me were tokens of a divided empire. The old grass and the new grass were striving together. In the low wet swales the verdure peeped out in vivid green ; beyond, on the mountains, lay light patches of snow, strangely relieved against their russet sides; all the humped hills looked like brindled kine in the shivers.
- 1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventure of Black Peter’ (Norton 2005, p.982)
- And there, in the middle of it was the man himself—his face twisted like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled beard stuck upwards in his agony.
- 1934, George Orwell, chapter 4, in Burmese Days:
- Some brindled curs hurried from beneath the houses to sniff at Flo […]
-
Derived terms
- brindled gnu
Translations
streaky, spotted
|
Verb
brindled
- simple past tense and past participle of brindle
- 1862, Thoreau, Wild Apples: The History of the Apple Tree:
- Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair [...] - some brindled with deep red streaks like a cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red rays running regularly from the stem-dimple to the blossom-end, like meridional lines, on a straw-colored ground, [...]
-