having long furrows or grooves
sulcated, canaliculate
having rows of folds or ridges
and
grooves
corrugated, plicate
having minute grooves
striated
having raised lengthwise strips
ridged
having hair-like ridges
lirate
The sparks were not a pattern on a dark ground, they were themselves the background, that of a flaming evening sky. The black lines, and stripes upon it, were the lower branches of a fir thicket; these branches were dead and bare because the growth was so dense that no light reached down here.
ISAK DINESEN, “The Caryatids, An Unfinished Tale”
When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy hour-lines graved on it.
HERMAN MELVILLE,
Moby-Dick
The large 420-pound bongo’s bright chestnut-red is also disrupted by mottled ears, a white chevron on the forehead, white cheek spots, a white crescent on the chest and, like the eland of the savanna, by ten or thirteen narrow transverse white stripes across back and sides.
RICHARD PERRY,
Life in Forest and Jungle
They scuttled for days and days till they came to a great forest, ‘sclusively full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-blatchy, shadows, and there they hid: and after another long time, what with standing half in the shade and half out of it, and what with the slippery-slidy shadows of the trees falling on them, the Giraffe grew blotchy, and the Zebra grew stripy, and the Eland and the Koodoo grew darker, with little wavy grey lines on their backs like bark on a tree trunk; ...
RUDYARD KIFLING, “How the Leopard Got His Spots”
having spiral grooves
rifled
having long or row-like thin projections
ribbed, costate
having cord- or tube-like trimming
piped
having cracks
cracked, crackled, craquelé
wound together
interlaced, intertwined, interwoven, entwined, plaited,
braided, plexiform
fiourish-like curve
curlicue
finely interlacing curves or floral or animal figures
arabesque
having ornamental curls or plaiting
goffered
having crossed lines
crisscross, crisscrossed, crosscut, reticulate, reticulated,
cancellate
having a design of crossed strips
latticed
marked with two or more sets of intersecting parallel lines
cross-hatched
having a net-like pattern
reticular, reticulated
network of fine lines or dots (as on a postage stamp)
burelé, burelage
map line representing connecting places having the same elevation
contour line
The tattoos were freshened by the air. Oriental dragons climbed Karp’s arm, green claws splayed from his feet, ink-blue women wrapped around the columns of his thighs, and with each steamy breath the vulture picked at his heart. More vivid were the whitening scars, dead stripes on his chest, where the accusations had been burned away. Across his narrow brow spread a livid band.
MARTIN CRUZ SMITH,
Polar Star
She had gone into the sea, touched bottom and returned with no apparent signs of corruption aside from the stillness of death. After the tension of rigor mortis all flesh became slack on the bone: breasts sagged on the ribs, mouth and jaw were loose, eyes flattened under half-open lids, the skin bore a luminous pallor mottled with bruises.
MARTIN CRUZ Smith,
Polar Star
Regular transverse division of black and white bands, and interchange of white and black in the spaces marked off, produce a chessboard, counterchange pattern, unless a band of foliated ornament is placed so as to alternate with the chequering. A chequered black and white stripe set against a plain black one would again lead us astray, giving the simple cross-band design shown....
ARCHIBALD H. CHRISTIE,
Pattern Design
In the first, the two series of chevrons are interlaced and the central lozenges are coloured differently from the decorated triangles which project beyond the margin into the edging lines. The second, formed with continuous angular S-figures imposed upon themselves in reverse direction, is a pattern much used by medieval workers, both in the form given and with S-elements of normal curved shape.
ARCHIBALD H. CHRISTIE,
Pattern Design
map shading line to suggest relief
hachure
having sharp back-and forth turns
zigzag, staggered, chevroned, chevronwise, cringle-crangle
having a pattern of uniformly spaced squares or perpendicular lines
grid-like, graticulated
having a pattern of contrasting or variegated squares
checkered, checkerboard, chessboard, counterchanged,
tesselated, patchwork
having or resembling a design of inlaid pieces
mosaic
having an indented checkered pattern
waffle, waffled
having a pattern of unbalances or irregular squares
plaid
having a pattern of varicolored diamonds
argyle
painted thickly
pastose
having pieces or elements overlapping
imbricate, imbricated, obvolute
having a pattern of tangent or overlapping circles or semicircles
scaled, perulate
having thin and flat or gill-like plates
lamellate, lamellated
having several whorls
multispiral
having a swirling pattern
marbled
having coils or spirals
whorled
... she could only look out at the brown marshes and the million black factories and the puddly streets of towns and a rusty steamboat in a canal and barns and Bull Durham signs and roundfaced Spearmint gnomes all barred and crisscrossed with bright flaws of rain. The jeweled stripes on the window ran straight down when the train stopped and got more and more oblique as it speeded up.
JOHN Dos PASSOS,
The Morning of the Century
They lay on a ledge high upon the sunny east slope and looked out to the north through the notch cut as sharply as a wedge out of a pie. Far below them the golden plain spread level, golden-tawny grass and golden-green wheat checker-boarded in a pattern as wide as the world.
WALLACE STEGNER, “Two Rivers”
The blossom-covered surface of the river is smooth, stretched taut from bank to bank like a polka-dotted fabric. The prow of the boat rips a passage through with a sizzling hiss. KEN KESEY,
Sometimes a Great Notion
The bedstead, chairs, and lounges, were of bamboo, wrought in peculiarly graceful and fanciful patterns. Over the head of the bed was an alabaster bracket, on which a beautiful sculptured angel stood, with drooping wings, holding out a crown of myrtle-leaves. From this depended, over the bed, light curtains of rose-colored gauze, striped with silver, supplying that protection from mosquitos which is an indispensable addition to all sleeping accommodation in that climate.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
having a pattern of worm-like curves
vermiculate, vermiculated
having irregular crooked or sinuous lines
rivulose
having wavy lines
undé, damascened
having a shimmering rippled or watery pattern (from two superimposed
patterns)
moiré
showing circular continuation or movement
rotary, rotational
having,fiower-shaped or flower-like ornaments
floriated, floral, floreted
arranged in a pattern of rosettes
rosular
having an ornamentally curled design
scrolled
curled or coiled inward
involute
having star-like rays
asteriated
radially symmetrical
actinoid
having encircling parallel rings
ringed
showing delicately ornamental openwork
filigreed
puckered, blistered
bullate, bulliform
knobbed
bosselated
bulging
bombé
Every bed was covered with a woven mat, our only bedding during the months of constant wet heat. And the hot bricks of the courtyard were crisscrossed with bamboo paths.
AMY TAN,
The Joy Luck Club
Where the curving hills scalloped the edge of the light-blue sky Mount Egmont soared ten thousand feet, sloping into the clouds, its sides still white with snow, its symmetry so perfect that even those like Frank who saw it every day of their lives never ceased to marvel.
COLLEEN McCULLOUGH,
The Thorn Birds
Later he stared at his finished work and longed to know if anyone other than Mr. Cromarty would be able to make sense of the miniature circles, dashes, and curlicues that floated freely above the lines with their sudden cruel hooks.
IAN McEWAN,
The Child in Time
... Hunt never commented on her appearance again, though a year later he gave her a present—a long, thin, limp, old silk scarf, with slanted ends and a black border and a small geometric pattern of green, beige and white checks and diamonds, a scarf from the thirties, which smelt faintly of age and old-fashioned face powder and cats and sawdust.
MARGARET DRABBLE,
The Middle Ground
having a hammered appearance
malleated
having an edge of short threads or strips
fringed, fimbriate
having an uneven and sharp edge
jagged
having a rough and untrimmed edge (as a piece of paper)
deckle-edged
having cuts along the edge
indented, nicked, nocked
having vee-shaped indentations
notched
having teeth or notches
toothed, saw-toothed, notched, crenelated, serrated,
serrulate, dentate, denticulate, dentelated, dentellated,
shark‘s-tooth, serried
minutely toothed
crenulate
having deep and sharp indentations
vandyked
having curled indentations
foiled
having curled projections along the edqe
scalloped, crenate, invected, invecked
having rounded projections
lobed, lobate, lobular
having small curled projections along the edge
crenulate, crenellated
having sharp backward projections
barbed
having concave indentations along the edge
engrailed
having a beveled or flattened edge (cut on an angle)
chamfered
He leaned over the side, gritting his teeth; a sunken brown channel, ending in a fragment of discoloured paper, lay across a light patch in the pattern of a valuable-looking rug. This made him feel very unhappy, a feeling sensibly increased when he looked at the bedside table. This was marked by two black, charred grooves, greyish and shiny in parts, lying at right angles and stopping well short of the ashtray, which held a single used match.
KINGSLEY AMIS,
LuckyJim