Adjective

(en adjective)

Made up of sections having different, often bright, colours.

* {{quote-book, title=, year=1883, author=Omar Khayyám, trans. Edward Henry Whinfield, other=, section=No. 78, page=54, passage=

O foolish one! this molded earth is naught; / This particolored vault of heaven is naught; / Our sojourn in this seat of life and death / Is but one breath, and what is that but naught? }}

Adjective

(en adjective)

Spotted or blotched, especially in black and white.

* 1965 , , Over Sea, Under Stone , page 20:

"Well, isn't that just like a girl. All this round you, and you only see a bit of dust. It'll brush off." He patted ineffectually at his piebald shirt.

* 2001 , Michel Faber, Under the Skin , page 4:

Usually, however, the hitcher was standing exactly where she'd first passed him, his arm perhaps just marginally less erect, his clothing (if rain was setting in) just that little bit more piebald .

* 2011 , Stanley Coren & Sarah Hodgson, Understanding Your Dog For Dummies :

The classic example of a piebald dog is the Dalmatian.

(figuratively) Of mixed character, heterogeneous.

* 1839 , Charles Hodge, Henry Boynton Smith, The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review , Volume XI, page 544:

And at the present day, the wanton introduction of scientific terms from the Greek and Latin, and of phrases from the French, threatens to render our tongue still more piebald , heterogeneous and unwieldy.

* 1864 , T. E. Espin, Supply and Training of Ministers'', in , ''Report of the Proceedings of the Church Congress [1863] , page 67:

Hence you will make the piebald' Church more ' piebald than ever.

* 1970 , , Volume 95, page 67:

Out there on the stage is the largest — and most piebald — rock band in captivity.