Dappled
adjective /ˈdæpəld/ — Marked with patches of light and shadow; spotted or flecked.
Definition
Having a mottled or spotted pattern — particularly the effect of sunlight filtering through leaves, creating moving patches of light and dark on the ground below.
Beyond the definition
Dappled is a sensory word. You know it from the floor of a forest in summer, from the coat of a horse, from afternoon light through a moving window. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote 'Pied Beauty' about the glory of dappled things — the freckled, pied variations of the world.
Origin & history
Middle English, possibly from Old Norse 'depill' (spot) or related to 'apple' — dapple grey horses have coats the colour and size of apple markings.
Example sentences
Illustrative sentences for learning, not verified community posts or sourced quotations.
The forest floor was dappled — light through canopy, shifting with the breeze.
She walked in the dappled shade, not quite sun, not quite shadow.
Dappled is the right word for that particular quality of afternoon light.
Synonyms
flecked, mottled, stippled, pied, spotted
Antonyms
uniform, solid, plain
Related words
Word in the Wild
See how this word appears in life, language and stories.
Illustrative sentences and imagined stories for learning — not verified sightings, interviews, or sourced quotations.
Fictional scene
Damp meadow after the rain
Sunlight breaks through clouds onto a meadow where raindrops cling to leaves above damp, dark, and uneven soil.
The light filtering through the trees onto the meadow creates the mottled, uneven patches of light and shadow characteristic of a dappled surface. This captures the shifting pattern of illumination and darkness as sunlight reaches the forest floor after a storm.
Image credit: Wordspun · AI-generated conceptual illustration