spotty
adjective, noun
Forms spottier spottiest spotties
- adjective Having spots; spotted.
- adjective Occurring in non-contiguous positions or locations. “Mobile phone reception in this area tends to be rather spotty.”
- adjective (of goods or conditions) Of inconsistent quality. “Many of the buyers had a spotty credit history.”
- adjective (of quality) Inconsistent: not reliably good, sometimes bad. “Many of the low-cost accessories (cords, chargers, etc) sold in the dollar store had spotty quality.”
- noun A common New Zealand fish, Notolabrus celidotus “I went fishing today and all I caught were spotties.”
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English spotty, equivalent to spot + -y.
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “spotty”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details