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Etymology and origin of the English word blot

Pronunciation

blot1 stain

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1373 Lelamour's Macer, in a manuscript of about 1465
Inherited from
Middle English blotten via Middle English

Etymology

The word for the stain is inherited from Middle English blot, also blotte,[2][3] of uncertain origin.[4][5][6] The OED knows no matching form outside English, and thinks it may be connected with plot,[4][7] or may join the idea of a spot with some words beginning “bl-”.[4] Old Norse blettr (“blot, stain”) and Danish plet (“spot, stain”) have often been compared, and the Shorter Oxford, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English favour a Scandinavian source, but the OED finds no regular sound relation.[4][8][9][10][6] Klein, Partridge and Merriam-Webster Unabridged point instead to Middle French blotte (“clod”), from Old French bloste, also blostre,[11][12][3] and the Middle English Dictionary tentatively compares that form as a variant of blestre (“a boil”), for which see blister.[2][6] Etymonline also mentions blot as a variant of bloc (“block”).[5] The verb is inherited from Middle English blotten, from the noun.[3][6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A spot: 1373, according to Barnhart,[6] from the Macer of Lelamour, a text the Middle English Dictionary dates with a query to 1373 from a manuscript of about 1465: "hit helith black blotts".[2] The sense of disgrace or blemish follows in 1375.[6] The OED's first record is Chaucer's Parson's Tale, from about 1386: "lat no blotte be bihynde".[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The physical and the moral senses appear almost together: the Pearl poet has "wythouten blot", and Chaucer's one use is of the stain of sin.[2][13] The Middle English Dictionary also has the sense of a slip in literary style, in Lydgate's praise of Chaucer.[2] A blot on a book is glossed in the Promptorium Parvulorum of 1440.[2] The verb, from before 1420, first meant to stain with blots.[6][5] From there it moved in two directions: to spoil a reputation (1566), and to cover writing so that it can't be read (1530), whence blot out, to wipe from memory or existence (1561) and to hide from sight (1593, in Shakespeare).[4] Johnson (1755) lists the noun's senses as an obliteration, a blur, and a stain on reputation.[14] Blotting-paper is recorded from 1519,[7] and the verb in the sense of drying with it from 1854.[4] A blotter (1591) was also a day book (1678), and in American English an arrest record (1887).[6] In 1979 biochemists took up both noun and verb for transferring separated proteins or nucleic acids to a fixing medium.[4]

Timeline

  • 1373 – noun, a spot.[6][2] The OED has this sense from about 1400.[4]
  • 1375 – noun, disgrace, blemish.[6] The OED has a moral stain from about 1386, in Chaucer.[4]
  • before 1420 – verb, blotten.[6] The OED's first record is from about 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum.[4]
  • 1519 – blotting-paper.[7]
  • 1530 – verb, to make writing illegible, to obliterate.[4]
  • 1561 – verb, figuratively, to efface or wipe out.[4]
  • 1566 – verb, to tarnish a reputation.[4]
  • 1578 – noun, any dark patch.[4] Etymonline has the 1570s.[5]
  • 1593 – verb, to hide from sight.[4]
  • 1854 – verb, to dry with blotting-paper.[4]
  • 1979 – in biochemistry, noun and verb, the transfer of separated proteins or nucleic acids.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A spot or stain, especially of ink: The form came back covered in blots.[15][3][4]
  2. Something that spoils the beauty or worth of the rest: The burnt-out mill was a blot on the village.[15][3][4]
  3. A moral flaw or disgrace; a stain on someone's name.[15][3][4]
  4. In biochemistry, the pattern of proteins or nucleic acids transferred to a fixing medium for identification, or the procedure itself.[16][4]
  5. (archaic) A deliberate crossing out of something written.[3][4]

Verb

  1. To spot or stain with ink or another liquid: The rain blotted the address on the envelope.[15][3][4]
  2. To dry with an absorbent material: She blotted the signature carefully.[16][4]
  3. blot out: to obliterate writing, or to wipe from memory or existence.[3][4]
  4. blot out: to hide from view: Fog blotted out the harbour.[16][3][4]
  5. In biochemistry, to transfer material from a gel to a fixing medium.[4]
  6. blot one's copybook: to spoil one's record or reputation.[8]
  7. (archaic) To tarnish a reputation.[3][4]
  8. (obsolete) To spoil paper with worthless writing.[3][4][8]

Word family

  • blotless
  • blotty
  • blotter
  • blottingly
  • blotting paper
  • inkblot
  • unblotted
  • blotto
  • blottesque

blot2 exposed backgammon piece

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1595
Borrowed from
Dutch bloot

Etymology

The word for the exposed backgammon piece is of uncertain origin.[4][3] The Shorter Oxford takes it as probably borrowed from Dutch bloot (“naked, exposed”),[8] and the OED, more cautiously, says that the sense suggests that word or Danish blot and Swedish blott (“bare, naked, uncovered”), compares blootstellen (“to expose”), but notes that none of these is used as a noun or in this special sense.[4] Partridge and Weekley also think of a Scandinavian or Dutch source,[12][7] Klein adds a likely relation to Low German blutt,[11] and the American Heritage Dictionary suggests blat (“naked, unprotected”).[17] Weekley also asks whether it may be blot1 in the sense of a weak spot.[7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the origin as unknown.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A backgammon piece left exposed to capture: 1595, according to Merriam-Webster Unabridged,[3] and 1598, in Florio's Worlde of Wordes, according to the OED.[4]

Semantic evolution

From the game the word passed to any exposed or weak point, or a target: the OED has this from before 1657.[4] The image of hitting a blot came along: Pepys wrote in 1666 of a committee "instructed to hit all our blots",[7] and Dryden of a master of his art who would not "make a blot which may be so easily hit".[3]

Timeline

  • 1595 – in backgammon, an exposed piece.[3] The OED has it from 1598.[4]
  • before 1657 – figuratively, an exposed or weak point, a mark.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. In backgammon, a piece left alone on a point and so open to capture.[3][4][8]
  2. (archaic) An exposed or weak point; a failing.[3][4][8]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  8. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  17. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Blot.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/blot. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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