blot

noun

1. A blemish, spot or stain made by a coloured substance.

   “England bound in with the triumphant ſea, / Whoſe rocky ſhore beates backe the enuious ſiedge / Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with ſhame, / With Inky blottes, and rotten Parchment bonds.”

   “When I and some others subscribed our names / To a plot for expelling my master king James [James II of England]; / I withdrew my subscription by help of a blot, / And so might discover or gain by the plot: […]”

   “Her utmost powers of expression (which were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write what she felt on the subject of my journey. Four sides of incoherent and interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots, were inadequate to afford her any relief. But the blots were more expressive to me than the best composition; for they showed me that Peggotty had been crying all over the paper, and what could I have desired more?”

   “[…] He was blind; he could not see the stars Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud; Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.”

   “But, like more than one similar North Wales beauty-spot, there had to be (at least at the time of which I write), a quarry, or ironworks, or some kind of industrial plant, which lay perpetually under a cloud of yellowish smoke—literally a blot on the landscape.”

2. (broadly)A stain on someone's reputation or character; a disgrace.

   “Thy ouerflow of good, conuerts to bad, / And thy abundant goodneſſe ſhall excuſe / This deadly blot, in thy digreſſing ſonne.”

   “He that reproueth a ſcorner, getteth to himſelfe ſhame: and he that rebuketh a wicked man, getteth himſelfe a blot.”

   “Thus man devotes his brother, and deſtroys; / And worſe than all, and moſt to be deplored / As human nature’s broadeſt, fouleſt blot, / Chains him, and taſks him, and exacts his ſweat / With ſtripes, that mercy with a bleeding heart / Weeps when ſhe ſees inflicted on a beaſt.”

   “The only blot on this service is that of its Kentish Town connections, which throughout the day in many cases just miss the St. Pancras-Luton stopping trains.”

3. A method of transferring proteins, DNA or RNA, onto a carrier.
4. An exposed piece in backgammon.

verb

1. (transitive)To cause a blot (on something) by spilling a coloured substance.
2. (intransitive)To soak up or absorb liquid.

   “This paper blots easily.”

3. (transitive)To dry (writing, etc.) with blotting paper.
4. (transitive)To spot, stain, or bespatter, as with ink.

   “The briefe was writte and blotted all with gore,[…]”

5. (transitive)To impair; to damage; to mar; to soil.

   “It blots thy beautie, as froſts doe bite the Meads,[…]”

6. (transitive)To stain with infamy; to disgrace.

   “Blot not thy Innocence with guiltleſs Blood.”

7. (transitive)To obliterate, as writing with ink; to cancel; to efface; generally with out.

   “to blot out a word or a sentence”

   “One act like this blots out a thouſand Crimes.”

8. (transitive)To obscure; to eclipse; to shadow.

   “He ſung how Earth blots the Moons gilded Wane,[…]”

9. (Multicultural-London-English, transitive)To sell illegal drugs, to deal, to push.

   “I'm walking down the street, past the coppers on the beat. Past the shotters blottin' weed, clear for everyone to see.”

   “What kind of things that you have. When I find out don't expect me to stop. I'll come for the P's that you stack. And come for the food that you blot.”

   “Porchy: Blottin' dope on the block, going on these shows.”

10. (transitive)To hit a blot.