Splattings

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of striking or hitting something with great force, resulting in a sudden burst or splash
2. A scene or instance where a liquid or substance is forcefully dispersed upon impact
3. A plural form denoting multiple occurrences of a splat or sudden burst upon collision

Etymology: "Splattings" is simply the plural of "splatting," and the more interesting story belongs to that base form. The term was coined by Charles Bloom, who gave it a precise technical sense in computer graphics: a technique in which each point of a three-dimensional scene is drawn as a soft, blurred spot, or splat, that spreads its colour and light onto nearby pixels. Rather than borrowing from older vocabulary, the word was built deliberately to name a new kind of rendering method. The everyday sense of "splatting" comes from the onomatopoeic "splat," which imitates the sound of something wet hitting a surface. The computing use borrows that sound-based image of a soft mass striking and spreading outward, so the graphics term carries a faint echo of the messy impact described in the everyday word.

Synonyms: splatters, splashes, smears, spills, blots