blot, inkblot, blot something out, home and dry, loses spot, come to light. Rorschach-Test：Hermann Rorschach, Inkblot Test Inventor

Rolling into the shuttered town-center shopping street just before 8 a.m., I peered through my windshield and up at the cloud-filled sky. Magnificent clouds, really: thick, rich clouds whose charcoal-shaded banks entirely blotted out any peaks there might have been in the vicinity.It's complicated

RUDY GIULIANI, a former mayor of New York City and failed presidential candidate, has caused a little stir by questioning Barack Obama's love of country. "I do not...

ECON.ST

When a Prisoner Swap Is a Rorschach-Test

The scene on the tarmac with Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout didn’t just show a prisoner trade. It told the story of where two rival countries had landed decades after the Cold War.

By NICHOLAS CASEY

Dec. 9, 2022

Google Doodle Honors Hermann Rorschach, Inkblot Test Inventor

A tribute to the Swiss psychiatrist on what would have been his 129th birthday

Mexico’s Corruption Comes to Light

By KARLA ZABLUDOVSKY 35 minutes ago

Andrés Granier, center, and other former governors and officials in Mexico have recently found themselves under investigation or facing public scorn. 

Europe in limbo: Home and dry | The Economist

Barack Obama's political worldview is pretty much what one would expect from a moderately left-leaning African-American law professor. This means that the president is indeed keenly aware of, among other blots on the national record, America's exceptionally savage history of slavery and white supremacy, and its ongoing legacy. This sort of awareness inevitably, and justifiably, complicates a relationship to one's country http://econ.st/1EFqQjO
www.economist.com/node/21555931 - Cached

26 May 2012 – THE joke recounted by the boss of a large Italian bank is an old one, but it captures the moment. Two hikers are picnicking when a bear ...

Canada home and dry
Mark Carney will be the next Bank of England governor
 be home and dry  (mainly British) also be home and hosed (Australian) to have completed something success


2009.8
Yahoo! loses spot at Britain's biggest ISP
Register
By John Oates • Get more from this author In a bizarre development Yahoo! has lost its search place on the BT Yahoo! home page to Google. ...

ink-blot test

noun

another term for Rorschach test.

spot
n.

1. A place of relatively small and definite limits.
2. 1. A mark on a surface differing sharply in color from its surroundings.
   2. A blemish, mark, or pimple on the skin.
   3. A stain or blot.
3. Games.
   1. A mark or pip on a playing card; a spade, club, diamond, or heart.
   2. A playing card with a specified number of such marks on it indicating its value.
4. Informal. A piece of paper money worth a specified number of dollars.
5. 1. A location; a locale.
   2. A point of interest: There are a lot of spots to visit in the old city.
   3. A position or an item in an ordered arrangement.
6. Informal. A situation, especially a troublesome one.
7. A flaw in one's reputation or character.
8. A short presentation or commercial on television or radio between major programs: a news spot.
9. Informal. A spotlight.
10. pl. spot or spots. A small croaker (Leiostomus xanthurus) of North American Atlantic waters, having a dark mark above each pectoral fin and valued as a food and sport fish.
11. Chiefly British. A small amount; a bit.

v., spot·ted, spot·ting, spots. v.tr.

1. To cause a spot or spots to appear on, especially:
   1. To soil with spots.
   2. To decorate with spots; dot.
2. To harm; besmirch.
3. To place in a particular location; situate precisely.
4. To detect or discern, especially visually; spy.
5. To remove spots from, as in a laundry.
6. Sports. To yield a favorable scoring margin to: spotted their opponents 11 points.
7. Sports. To act as a spotter for (a gymnast, for example).
8. Informal. To lend: Can you spot me $25 until payday?

v.intr.

1. To become marked with spots.
2. To cause a discoloration or make a stain.
3. To locate targets from the air during combat or training missions.

adj.

1. Made, paid, or delivered immediately: a spot sale.
2. Of, relating to, or being a market in which payment or delivery is immediate: the spot market in oil.
3. Involving random or selective instances or actions: a spot investigation.
4. Presented between major radio or television programs: a spot announcement.

idioms:
in spots

1. Now and then; here and there; occasionally.

on the spot

1. Without delay; at once.
2. At the scene of action.
3. Under pressure or attention; in a pressed position.

[Middle English, from Old English.]

spottable spot'ta·ble adj.


blot

Pronunciation: /blɒt/

Definition of blot
noun

• 1a dark mark or stain made by ink, paint, dirt, etc.:an ink blot
• a shameful act or quality that damages an otherwise good character or reputation:the only blot on an otherwise clean campaign
• a thing that mars the appearance of something:wind power turbines are a blot on the landscape

• 2 Biochemistry a procedure in which proteins or nucleic acids separated on a gel are transferred directly to an immobilizing medium for identification.

verb (blots, blotting, blotted)

[with object]

• 1 dry (a wet surface or substance) using an absorbent material:Henry blotted the page

• 2 mark or stain (something): (as adjective blotted)the writing was messy and blotted
• damage the good character or reputation of:the turmoil blotted his memory of the school

• 3 (blot something out) cover writing or pictures with ink or paint so that they cannot be seen: Mary dug her brush into black paint and blotted out her picture
• obscure a view:a dust shield blotting out the sun
• obliterate or disregard something painful in one’s memory or existence:the concentration necessary to her job blotted out all the feelings

• 4 Biochemistry transfer by means of a blot.

Phrases

blot one's copybook

British tarnish one’s good reputation: she saw her sister blot her copybook by being quoted in the press

Origin:

late Middle English: probably of Scandinavian origin and related to Old Norse blettr

blot in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of blot in the US English dictionary

bring (or come) to light

make or become widely known or evident:no new facts came to light