Word of the Day

: April 20, 2016

piebald

adjective PYE-bawld

What It Means

1 : composed of incongruous parts

2 : of different colors; especially : spotted or blotched with black and white

piebald in Context

The horse she most enjoys riding is a sleek, leggy piebald mare.

"What they did find, though, were some surprise photos of a piebald deer, something few people ever get to see in the woods." — Brenda Charpentier, The New Hampshire Sunday News, 3 Jan. 2016

Did You Know?

To many people, the noisy black and white birds that go by the scientific name Pica pica—better known as magpies—are nothing but pests. But the Latin root that was adopted for their name isn't a linguistic nuisance; it played an important role in the development of piebald. The pie of piebald (pie is another name for a magpie) derives from pica, which is Latin for "magpie." The other part of piebald comes from the word bald, which can mean "marked with white"; it can also be found in skewbald, an adjective used to describe animals marked with patches of white and any other color but black.