Also 9 stippule. [a. Du. stippelen, freq. of stippen to prick, speckle, f. stip, a point.]
1. trans. To paint, engrave, or otherwise design in dots; to produce gradations of shade or color in a design by means of dots or small spots. a. with the design, or object represented, as obj. Also with up.
1760–2. Goldsm., Cit. W., xlviii. Don’t you think … that eyebrow stippled very prettily?
1807. J. Landseer, Lect. Engraving, 125. Perceiving that it was peculiarly expressive of softness, Agostino Veneziano, and Boulanger sometimes stippled their flesh, and Julio Campagnola his back-grounds also.
1862. Athenæum, 30 Aug., 281. To grind at the mechanical practice of statue-copying alone, until he gets the bone-polishing power of stippling up antique forms with chalk to the regulation pitch.
fig. 1879. Mrs. A. Edwardes, Vivian, xii. 208. [In amateur theatricals] Every point … ought to be laboured at, stippled up like a miniature.
1892. Baring-Gould, Trag. Cæsars, I. 232. The characteristics of the man … sketched by Tacitus and stippled by Suetonius.
b. with the pigment as obj. Also with in.
1840. Thackeray, Pict. Rhapsody, Wks. 1900, XIII. 331. The painter has been touching up the figures … with … orange-colour; and you may see how this is stippled in upon the faces and hands.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), II. Pref. p. vi. The master hand is still recognized, trembling with age and stippling in the color with slow and painful touches.
1902. E. R. Suffling, Glass Painting, vi. 104. For this a thin mat of colour should be either badgered over the whole surface, or else finely stippled with a French stippler.
c. with the surface or substratum as obj.
1852. Beck’s Florist, 265. In one of the large stoves formerly used as an Orchid-house,… the panes have … been … re-glazed, and painted on the outside, ‘stippuled,’ to prevent the rays of the sun from injuring the leaves.
1882. Hardwicke’s Sci.-Gossip, Jan., 2/2. A portion of the field should be disclosed to be carefully stippled up to an even tone.
1890. W. J. Gordon, Foundry, xi. 215. A transparent plate is hatched or stippled in parallel lines.
d. intr. or absol.
1868. W. Sutherland, Pract. Guide Ho. Decoration, 20. [House painting.] It is best to use the large round stippling brushes to stipple with.
2. transf. in reference to natural processes or effects resembling this kind of painting or engraving.
a. 1774. Goldsm., Surv. Exp. Philos. (1776), II. 316. That each ray be diffused upon the cornea, and from thence be converged into a point, which will help to stipple or point out the image … upon the back of the eye.
1839–52. Bailey, Festus, 532. Like silver raindrops stippled in the ground.
1867–77. G. F. Chambers, Astron., I. i. 17. Minute pores or dots which stipple the Sun’s surface.
1894. Octave Thanet, in Forum (N.Y.) Oct., 211. The Virginia-creeper stipples the church walls with green in summer and the vividest scarlet in autumn.
