piebald means spotted or blotched, especially in black and white. It carries an Arena rating of 1762, earned across 10 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, piebald ranks #138 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #499 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #1,253 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #1,561 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
piebald is pronounced /ˈpaɪ.bɔːld/.
Why “piebald” is a great word
Marked with irregular patches of two distinct colors, especially black and white. Its etymology is a heraldic blazon of sound: from ‘pie’, the old name for the magpie (from Latin *pica*), joined to ‘bald’, which here means bearing a white patch or blaze, a combination first recorded in the 1580s. Unlike “brindled” (which suggests a fine, streaky mingling of hues) or “pied” (which leans toward a general motley), “piebald” speaks of bold, distinct splotches on a grand scale. It is the stark map of continents on a horse’s flank, the dappled sunlight and deep shadow falling across a barn floor, the solemn clown suit of a Hereford cow in a green field—a testament to nature’s preference for vivid, unblended contrast over subtle gradation.
Etymology
From pie (“magpie”) + bald (“having white patches or blazes”). Compare typologically Polish srokaty < sroka.
adj
- Spotted or blotched, especially in black and white.e.g.“[…] 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:
- Of mixed character, heterogeneous.
noun
- An animal with piebald coloration.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- piebaldness 77% match — The quality of being piebald. vs piebald →
- skewbald 70% match — Marked with patches of white and non-black colours. vs piebald →
- piebaldism 68% match — A rare autosomal dominant disorder of melanocyte development, whose common characteristics include a congenital white forelock, scattered normally-pigmented and hyperpigmented macules, and a triangular depigmented patch on the forehead. vs piebald →
- dappled 66% match — Having a mottled or spotted skin or coat, dapple. vs piebald →
- tobiano 65% match — A pinto horse with a spotted colour pattern consisting of white-haired, pink-skinned patches on a base coat colour. vs piebald →
- blackspotted 64% match — Having black spots vs piebald →
- dapple 64% match — A mottled marking, usually in clusters. vs piebald →
- dabbled 63% match — Characterized by spots (used especially of animals and plants); dappled. vs piebald →