Also 5 spakle, spakkyl, spackyll, specle, 6 speccle, speckil. [Corresponds to MDu. speckel (Flem. spekel, Du. spikkel): see SPECK sb.1 and -LE.]
1. A speck, small spot or mark, esp. one occurring on the skin, body, etc.; a natural marking of this nature; a small patch or dot of color.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 467/1. Spakle (S. spakkyl, P. spackyll), scutula.
1495. [see SPECK sb.1 1, quots. 1398].
1530. Palsgr., 274/1. Speccle in ones face, lentylle.
1549. E. Allen, Erasm. Par. Rev. St. John, xiii. Like unto a cat of the mountayne with her many speckles and spottes.
1591. Spenser, Virgil’s Gnat, 250. An huge great Serpent all with speckles pide.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 62. With vinegre alone, it [cumin] cureth the blacke spots and speckles appearing in any part of the bodie.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Wks. (1687), 285.
| Since they’r vouchsaf’d the Pen, the monstrous Fry | |
| Like Serpents with fair Speckles strike the Eye. |
1825. Scott, Talism., xvii. A coat or tabard … made of dressed bull’s hide, and stained in the front with many a broad spot and speckle of dull crimson.
1856. Morton, Cycl. Agric., II. 575/2. The seeds of a grayish colour, with purple speckles.
b. A small or minute object.
1882. Blackmore, Christowell, xvii. The humours of a slippery speckle, just beginning to outgrow a tadpole.
2. Speckled coloring, speckling.
1851. Hawthorne, Ho. Sev. Gables, x. 165. She curiously examined … the peculiar speckle of its plumage.
3. attrib. and Comb., as speckle-bellied, -coated, -faced, -starred adjs.; speckle-belly, (slang) a Nonconformist or Dissenter; (U.S.) one or other of various birds or fishes having speckled markings on the abdomen; speckle-wood (see SPECKLED ppl. a. 3 b).
1783. Waldron, Contin. Ben Jonson’s Sad Sheph., 71.
| Sprad in a spongy fungus’ fewmand shade, | |
| This swoll’n and *speckle-bellied toad was laid. |
1874. Slang Dict., 303. *Specklebellies, Dissenters. A term used in Worcester and the North, though the etymology seems unknown in either place.
1884. Coues, N. Amer. Birds, 684. Anser albifrons gambeli,… Speckle-belly.
1888. G. Trumbull, Names Birds, 24. Gadwell,… Gray Duck,… is known … at Moriches [in Long Island] as Speckle-Belly.
1891. Cent. Dict., Speckle-belly, a trout or char, as the common brook-trout of the United States, Salvelinus fontinalis.
1871. Browning, Balaust., 1321. Round thy lyre, Phoibos, there danced the *speckle-coated fawn.
1885. F. H. Bowman, Struct. Wool Fibre, 85. The Shropshire *Speckle-faced Sheep is a cross breed between the original horned sheep and the Southdown.
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. v. 143. Feast-famous Sturgeons, Lampreys *speckle-starr’d.
1619. J. Scott, Hist. & Descr. Amazones (MS. Bodl. Rawl. A 175), lf. 370 b. They Loaded the Ship with Tobacco, Anotta, and *Specklewood.
1669. Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., Penalties & Forfeit., 6. Speckle-wood, Jamaica-wood, Fustick, or any other Dying-wood.
1729. Cowley’s Voy., 24. The Island of Borneo … is plentifully stored with … fine Wood, as Speckle-Wood and Ebony.
