online medical dictionary | definition of blot

1. To spot, stain, or bespatter, as with ink. "The brief was writ and blotted all with gore." (Gascoigne)

2. To impair; to damage; to mar; to soil. "It blots thy beauty, as frosts do bite the meads." (Shak)

3. To stain with infamy; to disgrace. "Blot not thy innocence with guiltless blood." (Rowe)

4. To obliterate, as writing with ink; to cancel; to efface; generally with out; as, to blot out a word or a sentence. Often figuratively; as, to blot out offenses. "One act like this blots out a thousand crimes." (Dryden)

5. To obscure; to eclipse; to shadow. "He sung how earth blots the moon's gilded wane." (Cowley)

6. To dry, as writing, with blotting paper.

Synonyms: To obliterate, expunge, erase, efface, cancel, tarnish, disgrace, blur, sully, smear, smutch.

Origin: Cf. Dan. Plette. See Blot.

(01 Mar 1998)