The etymology of ‘dappled’ (from etymonline)
dappled (adj.)
“spotted, marked with roundish spots of different colors or shades,” early 15c., probably from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse depill “spot,” Norwegian dape “puddle, splash of water.” Or perhaps a back-formation from, or merger with, Middle English adjective dapple-gray “apple-gray” (late 14c.), used first of a horse, based on resemblance to the markings on an apple (compare Old Norse apalgrar “dapple-gray”).
How nice to think that dapple may be a back-formation from apple.
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Interesting! Always when I see reference to ‘old Norse’ I try to think about what the word would be in Swedish. In this case I can’t find any connection … the Swedish word for ‘dappled’ is ‘spräcklig’.
Now that I start to think about this, and the little cog wheels in my head start moving, the word ‘apelkastad’ comes to mind … it’s the word for a certain grey horse colour. What ever does grey has to do with apples?
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spräcklig makes me think of the English word ‘speckled’. You reminded me that in English there are dapple grey horses. The same thing?
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Yes, spräcklig is speckled and so are the dapple grey horses.
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