Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Divided into squares.
- adj. Marked by light and dark patches; diversified in color.
- adj. Marked by great changes or shifts in fortune: a checkered career.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Marked with squares or checkers, like a checker-board; exhibiting squares of different colors; hence, broken into different colors or into lights and shadows.
- Figuratively, variegated with different qualities, scenes, or events; crossed with good and bad fortune.
- Having the wing marked with numerous white spots, larger in size and fewer in number than in the condition termed spangled: used in describing breeds of pigeons.
Wiktionary
- v. Simple past tense and past participle of checker.
- adj. divided into squares, or into light and dark patches.
- adj. changeable; inconsistent; having variations or uncertainty
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Marked with alternate squares or checks of different color or material.
- adj. Diversified or variegated in a marked manner, as in appearance, character, circumstances, etc.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. marked by changeable fortune
- adj. patterned with alternating squares of color
Examples
“You can be sure that the term checkered history will be trotted out for virtually every participant in this story.”
“It looks boring, I don't want to turn darker than I already am, and I don't look good in checkered pants.”
“The story was that those economies with what one might call a checkered past would be put on the straight and narrow by Germany, which, for reasons of history, had a deep aversion to fiscal irresponsibility and high inflation.”
The Wall Street Journal: Though a Debt-Default Would Hurt, Investors May Not Give Up on Greece
“That fritt is also called a checkered lily for those markings.”
“After an undergraduate career that could charitably be described as checkered -- believe me, that is a charitable description -- I had been in the top ten of the class at the Michigan Law School, and had been looking for a job in a private law firm in Chicago, where I grew up.”
“A 121-year-old white survivor of Custer's Last Stand recalls his checkered life with Cheyenne, Wild Bill Hickok and medicine shows.”
“I thought it was interesting that part of Kenseth's comments after the race were apologetic but neither driver discussed in detail their so-called checkered past.”
“Earp" avoids Hollywood gloss, recalling his checkered past and his work as an enforcer for a prostitution ring.”
“Such a double-width band with parted loops (half red half black) will result in a band that is black on the left and red on the right (or vice versa) if the loop taken turned is turned 360° and a kind of "checkered" band with black left and red right, then changing to red left and black right after a while and so on.”
“I can tell you, that as a registered independant, who basically votes Republican, but leans Libertarian, I like to know what Ann thinks about the candidates because of her, shall we say 'checkered' past voting record.”
On voting for a candidate because you think other people will like him — AKA The Kerry Mistake.
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘checkered’.
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1523 more...
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GRE Words
abjure, unswear, state, rescission, indemnification, ab, reny, abnegate, vitiated, vitiate, adumbrated, abash and 378 more...
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And another
retrocausality, brusque, gainsay, cheerio, jaundiced, chamois, caw, craw, fudge, bubbler, shebang, bolo and 244 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
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Naresh_Gre
The path meanders through the vineyards
meander, labyrinth, Sinuous, gyrate, caron, awry, credo, banter, juxtaposition, argot, inexorable, foibles and 223 more...
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My Revised GRE Preparation List
Words from the new GRE : This list consists mostly of words from the book Magoosh-GRE-vocab-ebook, which is one of the best vocab materials available, especially if you have started preparing one ...
mulct, dupe, pittance, stipend, defray, cupidity, avarice, prodigal, profligate, affluent, insolvent, penurious and 533 more...
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My GRE word list
polemic, ad hominem, fallacious, comity, paucity, contrite, prosaic, veracious, laconic, pugnacious, alacrity, gregarious and 176 more...
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kingrat47's Words
procrustean, devolution, cacophony, hippopotamus, crunch, beware, chortled, sibilant, subtle, undermine, acromegaly, acropolis and 645 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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Bird Wirds: Adjectives
Adjectives used in actual (non-taxonomic) bird names, past and present.
roseate, glossy, whooping, neotropic, pelagic, ferruginous, crested, whiskered, marbled, tufted, horned, eared and 818 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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Magoosh
menace, injunction, juggernaut, refrain, mnemonic, abysmal, grueling, ace, gregarious, amiable, wacky, esoteric and 201 more...
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Spiftacular's Words
spiffy, orchestra, skulduggery, antipathy, leap, sonata, opus, dug, deed, fabulous, nifty, glisten and 221 more...
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word
s i like.
schadenfreude, maritime, doppelganger, dainty, widdershins, jabberwocky, hazmat, biohazard, unfortunate, fortune, hyperbole, delirious and 45 more...
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stevebrullecheckitout
diurnal, furlough, half-life, hourglass, hazard, chintz, palaver, sylvan, staid, curt, winsome, adroit and 52 more...
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set 16
from 76 to 80
innocuous, raspy, relevant, suffragist, dispel, glean, belabor, begrudge, zany, raucous, cadaverous, frolicsome and 74 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for checkered.
slumry A checkered past Jul 12, 2007