Literary notes about mottled (AI summary)
The word "mottled" is used in literature as a richly evocative descriptor that imbues both tangible details and mood into a scene. In botanical and natural contexts, as in [1], it describes the textured, uneven appearance of objects, evoking a sense of harsh, time-worn quality. In contrast, in character portrayals like [2], [3], and [4], "mottled" accentuates facial features or skin as markers of weariness, distress, or an almost eerie pallor, contributing to a character's enigmatic or troubled aura. The term also colors landscapes and mystical imagery—whether describing the patterned expanse of a moor in [5] and [6], or the serpentine movement in poetic lines like [7]—suggesting both beauty and an unsettling irregularity. Across genres, from the eerie settings of Stevenson’s [8] to the whimsical touches in Wilde’s [9] and the intricate examinations in Poe’s work ([10], [11]), "mottled" serves as a versatile tool that adds depth and texture, allowing writers to blur the boundaries between natural irregularity and symbolic meaning.
- Pod rhomboidal before maturity, prickly, containing 2 semi-globose seeds with testa hard, mottled and tough.
— from The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines by T. H. Pardo de Tavera - His mottled face was apprehensive, and he moved with a sort of reluctant alacrity.
— from The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance by H. G. Wells - Round one of his hands he had a handkerchief wrapped, which was mottled all over with bloodstains.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - She shot her arms out from her sleeves, and we saw with horror that they were all mottled with bruises.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - Our wagonette had topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled with gnarled and craggy cairns and tors.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - I looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge swelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - From far the eyes, its trail Along the burning shale Bending its wavering tail, Like a mottled serpent scan.
— from Poems by Victor Hugo - "Sir," said the butler, turning to a sort of mottled pallor, "that thing was not my master, and there's the truth.
— from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - Then a little Frog, with bright jewelled eyes, and a green mottled coat, swam up to him.
— from The Happy Prince, and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde - I first untied one of them, a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the rim of the wicker-work.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - I first untied one of them, a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the rim of the wicker-work.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe
