Brindled

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈbrɪndÉ™ld/

Origin

An alteration of brinded, probably by association with speckled, grizzled etc.

Full definition of brindled

Adjective

1. of a brownish, tawny or gray colour, with streaks or spots; streaky, spotted
• 1725, Pope, Odyssey (translation),The palace in a woody vale they found,High raised of stone; a shaded space around;Where mountain wolves and brindled lions roam,(By magic tamed,) familiar to the dome.
• 1853, Melville, All round me were tokens of a divided empire. The old grass and the new grass were striving together. In the low wet swales the verdure peeped out in vivid green ; beyond, on the mountains, lay light patches of snow, strangely relieved against their russet sides; all the humped hills looked like brindled kine in the shivers.
• 1862, Thoreau, Apples, these I mean, unspeakably fair ... - some brindled with deep red streaks like a cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red rays running regularly from the stem-dimple to the blossom-end, like meridional lines, on a straw-colored ground, ...
• 1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Adventure of Black Peter’ (Norton 2005, p.982)And there, in the middle of it was the man himself—his face twisted like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled beard stuck upwards in his agony.