Also 5 flek(k)e, 7 flecke. [f. FLECK sb.1; cf. ON. flekka (perh. the source), Da. flække, Sw. fläcka, Ger. flecken.] trans. To spot, streak or stripe; to dapple, variegate.

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c. 1430.  Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 199.

          For to begynne at hire motle crown,
The whyght flekkyd with the brown,
  Shoorn as a sheep with sherys keen,
There is noon so fayr in al our town,
  Whan she hath on hire hood of green.

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1576.  Turberv., Venerie, 10. Their legges streaked and flecked with redde and blacke.

3

1641.  G. Sandys, Paraphr. Song Sol., IV. i.

        I to the Mountains will retire,
Where bleeding Trees perfumes expire:
Vntill the Morning fleck the sky,
And Nights repulsed Shadows fly.

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1697.  Dryden, Virg. Pastorals, II. 55.

        Besides, two kids, that in the valley stray’d …
Both fleck’d with white, the true Arcadian strain,
Which Thestylis had often begg’d in vain.

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1798.  Coleridge, Anc. Mar., III. viii.

        And straight the Sun was fleck’d with bars
(Heaven’s Mother send us grace!),
As if through a dungeon-grate he peer’d
With broad and burning face.

6

1830.  Tennyson, Poems, Love & Sorrow.

        O maiden, fresher than the first green leaf
With which the fearful springtide flecks the lea.

7

1872.  Black, Adv. Phaeton, x. 139. Overhead the still blue is scarcely flecked by a cloud; but all the same there is a prevailing coolness that makes the driving through the morning air delicious.

8

1873.  Symonds, Grk. Poets, viii. 250. It is as if the neck alone and a portion of the feathers of the soaring bird were flecked with gold and crimson grain, so that a turn of the body or a fluttering of the pinions is enough to bring the partial splendour into light or cast it into shadow.

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  b.  To force in flecks or patches into. rare.

10

1886.  Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll, viii. The wind made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face.

11

  Hence Flecking vbl. sb. Also concr.

12

1892.  Daily News, 3 May, 2/4. In other materials this flecking with irregularly recurrent hints of colour is confined to stripes.

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1893.  Westm. Gaz., 9 Feb., 6/1. White spots and fleckings in the waistcoats.

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