brindle
Having such a colouration; brindled.
Adjective
- Having such a colouration; brindled.
- It is brindle. Stripes of black and brown ride its ribs like a zebra’s. - 2011, Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones, Bloomsbury (2017), page 18:
Origin
Back-formation from brindled, a variant of brinded (“streaked, spotted”), apparently reanalyzed as brindle + -ed. Attested from the late seventeenth century.
Forms
Synonyms
Derived
Noun
- A streaky colouration in animals.
- An animal so coloured.
- I snatch at the puppy closest to me, the brindle, which is limp in my hand, and shove it down my shirt. - 2011, Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones, Bloomsbury (2017), page 235:
Forms
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Verb
- To form streaks of a different color.
- Sorely too as I laboured and toiled, the reward of toil would not come ; already my back began to curve, and my hair to brindle itself with gray, yet I saw no luck before me. - 1841, The Metropolitan - Volume 30, page...
- It is the perfect opposition of dark and light that brindles the tiger with gold flame and dark flame. - 1925, D.H. Lawrence, Reflections on the Death of Porcupine and Other Essays:
- The darkest areas (the points) may brindle or become bleached by brilliant sunlight, especially in chocolate and white points. - 1993, Peter Warner, Perfect Cats, page 78: