Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To draw, engrave, or paint in dots or short strokes.
  • transitive verb To apply (paint, for example) in dots or short strokes.
  • transitive verb To dot, fleck, or speckle.
  • noun A method of drawing, engraving, or painting using dots or short strokes.
  • noun The effect produced by stippling.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To produce gradation in color or shade in (any material) by means of dots or small spots. See stippling.
  • noun In the fine arts, same as stippling.
  • noun In decorative art, an intermediate tone or color, or combination of tones, used to make gradual the passage from one color to another in a design.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Engraving) A mode of execution which produces the effect by dots or small points instead of lines.
  • noun (Paint.) A mode of execution in which a flat or even tint is produced by many small touches.
  • transitive verb To engrave by means of dots, in distinction from engraving in lines.
  • transitive verb To paint, as in water colors, by small, short touches which together produce an even or softly graded surface.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the use of small dots that give the appearance of shading; the dots thus used
  • verb to use small dots to give the appearance of shading

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make by small short touches that together produce an even or softly graded shadow, as in paint or ink
  • verb engrave by means of dots and flicks
  • verb apply (paint) in small dots or strokes
  • verb produce a mottled effect

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Dutch stippelen, frequentative of stippen, to speckle, from stip, dot, from Middle Dutch.]

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Examples

  • Now, stipple is of course such an easy method that, like all easy methods, it runs to flamboyance; when people have a chance to express themselves they are apt to make all that is inside and that is outside of themselves in one form or another flamboyant, grandiose, and sometimes ridiculously so; but other times it is the expression of the most beautiful things in architecture, especially from the French schools, that one could imagine.

    A Trip Through South America 1922

  • Loveliness, and so on, which appeared last year "; and his description of the annuals 'composite art sounds much like a description of" Verses "and its accompanying engraving:" A large weak plate, done in what we believe is called the stipple style of engraving [the stippling in Georgiana.

    Commentary on "Verses" by L.E.L. 2000

  • Glass is a master of "stipple" portraits, a technique using tiny dots to simulate facial contours, color and shading.

    unknown title 2009

  • Ridley, William (1764 – 1838): one of the leading engravers of the time, Ridley stipple-engraved many portraits, including

    Index of People 2009

  • But while the paper's world-class reporting has propelled the Journal brand, it's the stipple drawing, pioneered by Journal artists 30 years ago, that has become a trademark.

    A History of Wall Street Journal Hedcuts Brian Aguilar 2010

  • The colors can be mixed together or left separate ... it can be applied with a watercolor brush, stipple brush or stamping sponge and works great with pigment inks (think craft ink pads), embossing or VersaMark Inks. It can also be mixed with Lumiere (another former Stampin 'Up product) for a cool shimmery effect.

    Outsmarting technology... jpitta 2009

  • Wall Street Journal artist Noli Novak Brian Aguilar walks through the history of the WSJ's beloved stipple drawings and has the paper's artists explain how the so-called hedcuts are made.

    A History of Wall Street Journal Hedcuts Brian Aguilar 2010

  • The colors can be mixed together or left separate ... it can be applied with a watercolor brush, stipple brush or stamping sponge and works great with pigment inks (think craft ink pads), embossing or VersaMark Inks. It can also be mixed with Lumiere (another former Stampin 'Up product) for a cool shimmery effect.

    Archive 2009-09-01 jpitta 2009

  • Everything from a 1989 Wall Street Journal stipple drawing of Martha Stewart to Andrew Tift's hyperrealist black-and - white painting of author Cormac McCarthy, right, will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery's "Americans Now" exhibit.

    The Short List 2010

  • For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

    Rev. James Martin, S.J.: Want to Experience God? You Already Have: Exaltation and Clarity 2010

Comments

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  • Citation on pointilliste.

    June 22, 2008

  • An erect nipple facing north.

    July 30, 2008

  • Guns leave distinct types of wounds at different ranges. A contact wound, with the gun touching or pressed into the skin, can sear a round scorch mark called a muzzle stamp. If the gun is near the target but not touching it, hot particulate debris leaves stippling, a confetti pattern of abrasions around the bullet hole. If the gun is fired from closer than six inches (a close-range wound) then there will also be soot around the wound. Anything more than six but fewer than thirty inches, with stippling but not soot, is called an intermediate-range wound. If a wound has none of these features—no soot and no stippling—then it's a distant-range bullet wound. Whether the gun was fired from thirty inches or thirty yards away, it will leave a neat hole and nothing else.
    Judy Melinek, M.D. & T.J. Mitchell, Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner (New York: Scribner: 2014), p. 117 (emphasis added).

    March 8, 2016