piebald

comparative more piebald · superlative most piebald

1. Spotted or blotched, especially in black and white.

   […] she kept several piebald mice and a restless revolving squirrel.

   1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC

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   This figure was clad in tweeds of a piebald check, with a pink tie, a sharp collar and protuberant yellow boots.

   1912 November – 1914 September, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “(please specify the page)”, in The Wisdom of Father Brown, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, →OCLC

   We saw many small animals, such as porcupines, a scaly ant-eater, and a wild pig, piebald in color and with long curved tusks.

   1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

   Of course my sister didn’t know that, but she knew it very distinctly when she turned a sharp corner and found herself in a mixed company of camels, piebald horses, and canary-coloured vans.

   1914, Saki [pseudonym; Hector Hugh Munro], “A defensive diamond”, in Beasts and Super-Beasts […], London: John Lane, The Bodley Head […], →OCLC

   "Well, isn't that just like a girl. All this round you, and you only see a bit of dust. It'll brush off." He patted ineffectually at his piebald shirt.

   1965, Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone, page 20

   Usually, however, the hitcher was standing exactly where she'd first passed him, his arm perhaps just marginally less erect, his clothing (if rain was setting in) just that little bit more piebald.

   2001, Michel Faber, Under the Skin, page 4

2. figurativelyOf mixed character, heterogeneous.

   Hence you will make the piebald Church more piebald than ever.

   1864, T. E. Espin, Supply and Training of Ministers, in Church of England, Report of the Proceedings of the Church Congress [1863], page 67

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   And at the present day, the wanton introduction of scientific terms from the Greek and Latin, and of phrases from the French, threatens to render our tongue still more piebald, heterogeneous and unwieldy.

   1839, Charles Hodge, Henry Boynton Smith, “The Origin and Variations of the English Language”, in The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, volume XI, page 544

   Out there on the stage is the largest — and most piebald — rock band in captivity.

   1970, “Time”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volume 95, page 67

plural piebalds

1. An animal with piebald coloration.

   “She always performs really well,” she says, showing me TikToks of her lip-syncing next to Luna, an elderly, noble-looking piebald with mournful brown eyes.

   2026 May 28, Amelia Gentleman, “The strange surveilled life of Piper Rockelle: why did a former child influencer decide to go on OnlyFans?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

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   Our neighbour's fancy was for piebald horses, and so strong was it that he wished not to have any one-coloured animals in his herd, despite the fact that he bred horses for sale and that piebalds were not so popular as horses of a more normal colouring.

   1918, William Henry Hudson, Far Away and Long Ago, page 91