stipple means the use of small dots that give the appearance of shading; the dots thus used. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 85 out of 100.
stipple is pronounced /ˈstɪpəl/.
Why “stipple” is a great word
STIPPLE — [Noun/Verb] A technique or effect of shading or creating texture using numerous small dots; to apply such dots. Probably from Dutch *stippel* ("small dot") and *stippelen* ("to spot or dot"). Unlike "hatch" (to shade using closely spaced parallel lines) or "speckle" (to mark with spots of irregular distribution), stippling is a deliberate grammar of precision, a systematic accumulation of uniform marks to conjure form from absence. It is the grainy dusk of an old engraving, the shimmering pointillist surface of a Seurat painting, and the palpable roughness of a lizard’s skin rendered in ink—a testament to how substance emerges from the cumulative weight of a thousand tiny absences, a quiet argument against the void.
Etymology
Probably from Dutch stippel (“small dot”), originally applied to the dots themselves and later to the technique.
noun
- The use of small dots that give the appearance of shading; the dots thus used.“Glory be to God for dappled things— / For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; / For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim: […]”
verb
- To use small dots to give the appearance of shading to.“Don’t you think, Major Vampyre, that eye-brow ſtippled very prettily?”