Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A small brownish spot on the skin, often turning darker or increasing in number upon exposure to the sun.
- v. To dot or become dotted with freckles or spots of color.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A brownish-yellow spot in the skin, particularly on the face, neck, or hands, either hereditary or produced by exposure to the sun. These spots usually occur in large number, and are due to increase in the pigment of the lower layers of the epidermis.
- n. Any small spot or discoloration; a fleck.
- To mark with freckles or spots: as, his face was freckled by the sun.
- To become covered with freckles: as, the face freckles by exposure.
Wiktionary
- n. A small brownish or reddish pigmentation spot on the surface of the skin.
- v. transitive To cover with freckles.
- v. intransitive To become covered with freckles.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A small yellowish or brownish spot in the skin, particularly on the face, neck, or hands.
- n. Any small spot or discoloration.
- v. To sprinkle or mark with freckles or small discolored spots; to spot.
- v. To become covered or marked with freckles; to be spotted.
WordNet 3.0
- v. become freckled
- n. a small brownish spot (of the pigment melanin) on the skin
- v. mark with freckles
Etymologies
- Middle English freken, frekel, from Old Norse freknur pl. (cf. Swedish fräkne, Danish fregne), s-less variant of Proto-Germanic *sprekalan 'freckle' (compare Norwegian dialect sprekla, Middle High German spreckel), from Proto-Indo-European *sp(h)er(e)g- 'to strew, sprinkle'. Cognate with Albanian fruth ("measles"). More at spark. Related to spry, sprack. (Wiktionary)
- From Middle English frakles, freckles, alteration of fraknes, probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Icelandic freknōttr, freckly. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“So what's gonna happen to 'em?" called a freckle-faced boy from the back of the classroom.”
“Trade with you, Bobby," called a freckle-faced boy, dragging an old tin tray.”
“Honestly, I've always been called freckle face Felicia.”
“I noticed a mark on my neck about a year ago, but in my haste to get my son to soccer practice, skiing lessons, PTA meetings, working on homework with him, being classroom mom, working 35 hours at my job and being an overall over-achiever, I did not go to the doctor and have the "freckle" checked out.”
“The truth is... freckles do not hurt; my "freckle" was killing me.”
“But Mrs. Resnick hesitated, while Mark scratched a freckle on his arm like a scratch-n-sniff.”
“I was happy to be tour guide and companion to Melanie and this freckle-faced strawberry blond bundle of energy.”
The Huffington Post: Margie Goldsmith: The Bucket-List Tour of New York City
“Sue Royden, 52, a Phoenix native was diagnosed with it in March — a "freckle" on the bottom of her foot — and she now wonders if afternoons reading at the beach stretched out on her stomach are to blame.”
“There was an instance where I suggested a fancy place too busy thinking about that mysterious freckle on my Skinny Arm and whether or not my pinkie toe is supposed to curve in that direction and a guy took me there at my suggestion.”
“I'll steal a stare across your thigh and trace the small flaws that freckle toward your heavenly hips.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘freckle’.
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Your Mother
Joyess
cramp, crumble, cringe, slope, fling, prone, freckle, plank, frock, tramp, slump, crotch rot and 36 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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miscellany
extrapolate, effluvium, maelstrom, ecclesiastic, potentiate, prestidigitation, verisimilitude, innocuous, octogenarian, interlocutor, proselytize, ubiquitous and 138 more...
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Buttery
Words that make me feel cozy
Noodle, Nugget, Butter, Soft, Snug, Feather, Socks, Knit, Mug, Curl, Billow, Lounge and 315 more...
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Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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Two years
Okay, I admit it. I made a list of words my daughter knew when she was two years old.
bat, baba, a, abalone, about, acorn, adrienne, after, again, airplane, alison, all and 694 more...
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Gaw
Words for things both tangible and anthropic. I'm in the process of spinning off hardware into ute, and people into oofy.
cum-twang, naumachia, yngling, juggernaught, bliss ninny, iliac crest, moistened bint, slumlord, spondoolies, classy lady, charnel house, electrodoméstico and 334 more...
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vinyl's Words
deliverator, finna, metric fuckton, fag, hyphy, ginormous, sacrilicious, fantabulous, macaca, n-word, pterodactyl, genious and 560 more...
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Cellar Door
It's the way the letters combine to form an beautiful whole and the way its sound tickles the ear.
capricious, sigh, jest, psyche, elf, wither, languish, wane, fade, caustic, pithy, epicene and 121 more...
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hauntedtapedeck's Words
hinterland, palimpsest, palisade, thaumaturgy, sangfroid, frisson, crick, patchwork, susurration, disconsolate, septum, elbow and 119 more...
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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mad the wordie
words that I like
sparsile, inchoate, asparagus, dendrochronology, primifluous, psalloid, cetacean, roots, birches, spires, mythopeia, intricate and 167 more...
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jameslappin's Words
pallid, flacid, listless, lamped, saunter, waif, sparse, speckled, freckle, egregious, fortuitous
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jacksmynde's Words
flippant, areola, uvula, bespectacled, hussy, penchant, predilection, sojourn, frivolous, stipend, enamoured, smitten and 30 more...
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F is for Flea Circus
My F Words
fire engine red, fanboy, fancy pants, fanzine, feeling fist, femme fatale, fiasco, fiddle faddle, fiddlesticks, filibuster, flannel, flea circus and 41 more...
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on the body
palm, wrist, sternum, breast, digit, toes, philtrum, pinky, lips, tongue, palate, skin and 80 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for freckle.
hernesheir Adj. Hot-spirited. Dr. Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary and Supplement, 1841. Jun 13, 2011