How to Use mottled in a Sentence

mottled

adjective
  • On the day of the event, the sky above the Palais Garnier’s Beaux-Arts façade was a mottled, hazy apricot.
    Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2023
  • Deep frostbite is the next stage, in which the skin can appear blue and mottled, and numb to pain and cold.
    Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 3 Feb. 2023
  • As the meat nears ready, Harout rips open a package of mottled lavash and slides out a flat piece of bread about 3 feet long.
    Jenn Harris, Los Angeles Times, 22 June 2023
  • Sandra, too, is committed to the truth, the mottled kind that artists know.
    Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 15 Oct. 2023
  • The mottled surface of the mushrooms soaked up the sauce and added a different dimension of chew to the dish.
    Los Angeles Times, 1 Feb. 2023
  • Greigii Greigii tulips are known for their mottled foliage.
    Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 Apr. 2023
  • Bake it in a buttered pan to a mottled bronze with a little burnishing at the edges.
    Ligaya Mishan, New York Times, 5 June 2024
  • As the metaphorical curtain was drawn, the stage was set with four angled walls of mottled gray.
    Camille Okhio, ELLE Decor, 24 Aug. 2022
  • The stones’ gray color and mottled clarity were seen as flaws.
    Abigail Covington, New York Times, 29 Sep. 2022
  • The surfaces, shaped by hand, are a rough-textured mottled white that takes on a grayish tone when seen from a distance.
    Mark Lamster, Dallas News, 3 May 2023
  • Ranging in color from a mottled green to a mottled brown, these cuties tend to lurk at the bottom of the water, where their backs blend in with the rocks and mud.
    Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 30 May 2023
  • While my wife and I inspect the whale’s mottled flanks, our 2-year-old sits near the trees, dropping pebbles into his lap one at a time.
    Peter Wayne Moe, Longreads, 25 Feb. 2022
  • This plant has the most eye-catching leaves in the garden thanks to its mottled multi-color patterns.
    Southern Living, 1 July 2021
  • So does the black-and-yellow walking toad (Melanophryniscus stelzneri), which is black on its back and mottled bright red on its belly.
    Sofia Quaglia, Discover Magazine, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Marvel The hue also pops up in the primary bath shower, which is sheathed in mottled pink quartzite slab.
    Alyssa Bird, ELLE Decor, 7 Sep. 2023
  • Of the mottled varieties, both species tend to be lighter underneath.
    Paul Richards, Field & Stream, 14 Sep. 2023
  • Pruning Don’t prune the plant after the bloom; instead, let the mottled, deep-green foliage die back on its own in midsummer.
    Nadia Hassani, Better Homes & Gardens, 31 Jan. 2024
  • Workers shuffle through that mottled brown carpet with bare feet — like kicking sand on the beach — to expose the harvest to some sun.
    Mumbi Gitau, Fortune Europe, 27 Feb. 2024
  • They’re seated behind a tabletop, a brushy plane of pale and mottled yellow that takes up almost half the picture.
    Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 1 Nov. 2023
  • About 350 miles northwest of Montreal, amid a vast pine forest, is a deep mining pit with walls of mottled rock.
    Jack Ewing Brendan George Ko For The New York Times, New York Times, 20 Sep. 2022
  • This tree has a beautiful white, mottled bark, similar to birch trees.
    Erin Hayes Burt, Dallas News, 18 July 2023
  • These feisty birds are recognizable by their mottled feathers, long tails, long legs and short head crest — which is more brownish than the bright blue in the cartoon.
    Shaena Montanari, The Arizona Republic, 3 Sep. 2020
  • There was a mushroom one with long fringes that bounced trippily; there was a mottled sequin ribcage with a tulle exoskeleton.
    Rachel Tashjian, Harper's BAZAAR, 16 Mar. 2022
  • On one memorable dive, the Pisces subs were greeted by a Pacific sleeper shark—a thick-bodied deep-dweller with mottled skin and a buzz-saw mouth.
    Susan Casey, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Aug. 2023
  • The fruit has a mottled look as your picture and usually turns brown in the dead spots with rotting brown colored interior.
    oregonlive, 21 Aug. 2021
  • Sheehan walked me through the tricks: adding caramel color; adding oats to the outside of bread; giving bread a heartier, richer, or mottled appearance.
    Sarah Larson, The New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2023
  • To complement an orange pumpkin, consider adding dark green, gray-green, white, striped, mottled squashes, and gourds to the mix.
    Andrea Beck, Better Homes & Gardens, 28 Oct. 2022
  • This earthy, mottled wall finish with a chalky texture has embellished homes since the Roman empire.
    Sarah Karnasiewicz, WSJ, 22 Feb. 2023
  • The melton coat sits over a flecked tweed suit—contrasting the matte outerwear with mottled textures beneath.
    Aleks Cvetkovic, Robb Report, 21 Jan. 2023
  • Couples can toast to their future amid the fragrant citrus trees, pines, and rustling palms, all of which are framed by mottled stone balusters—a Gatsby-esque stage for speeches.
    Rosalyn Wikeley, Condé Nast Traveler, 20 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mottled.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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