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MOTTLE
Sometimes, wavy grain in a wood combines with spiral, interlocked grain to produce a wrinkled, blotchy figure known as mottle, which would be called "curly" if the curl lines were not so broken up. If the mottled figure is scattered randomly it is tecnically called "broken mottle" but if it appears as a regular checkerboard pattern it is called "block mottle", and a very regular, sharp, block mottle is called "razor mottle". I have never seen the term "broken mottle" used. Perhaps vendors think it carries a negative connotation, but in any event, the plain "mottle" is used instead. Anigre, makore, and sapele frequently exhibit all kinds of mottle figure, and it also occurs in mahogany, koa, bubinga, African satinwood and some other species. The various "mottle" terms are, like many terms regarding wood figure, used very loosely and should not be trusted sight unseen.
One mottle term that is particularly subject to misrepresentation is bee's wing which is an extremely tight mottle. Vendors will call a simple block mottle "bee's wing" just to make it sell better.
Examples:
mottled andiroba veneer
avodire veneer that has a light mottle figure that shows fairly clearly the distinction between curly in which the curl lines are long and mottle in which the curl lines are broken and irregular as you see here
paldao veneer --- like the avodire directly above, if the curl lines were longer and unbroken, this would be called curly, but because of the way the curl lines are broken up, it is mottled.
sapele veneer that was listed as just "mottled" but appears to me to be more legitimately called "block mottle"
razor mottle makore veneer
anigre veneer that was listed as "razor mottled" --- it definitely has the sharp lines of razor mottle, but it does not have the regularity of true razor mottle, showing once again how carelessly these terms are bandied about by vendors.
anigre veneer that was listed as "razor mottled" and really IS a razor mottle figure, although it has less regularity of figure than some razor mottle.
anigre veneer that was listed simply as "figured" but to me seems clearly to be specifically a mottle figure and should have been listed as such.
makore veneer --- the first was listed as mottled and the second as "block mottle" but to me the second one is barely a mottle figure, much less a block mottle.
tasmanian mrytle
african satinwood veneer
bubinga plank with overemphasized red color and a very irregular mottle that exists more in the color variations over the piece than in the grain variation; this use of the word "mottle" is more in line with the standard English language than the normal woodworking use of that term.