besmirch

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“
Whatever happened, he and Kitty should not degenerate into a pair of scolds--besmirch their life with quarrels as ugly as they were silly.

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. transitive verb To stain; sully: a reputation that was besmirched by slander.
  2. transitive verb To make dirty; soil.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • FBI and CIA and it would not be unreasonable to think that there were attempts to besmirch her name and character.
  • I will never besmirch your name only because of that nickname. an internet link to watch the game online for free? —  Lone Star Ball
  • My message to O'Neil and the others out there is shut up and get your own houses in order before you try to besmirch the fine name of Arsenal Football Club. —  Soccer Blogs - latest posts
  • (CREEPS), seeks motivated, dogmatic candidates to champion an aggressive market strategy to discredit, besmirch, misrepresent, misinterpret and ultimately eradicate international efforts to entrench shared values that regulate trade through limits to the use of overt military force and economic coercion to shape humanity and civilization into the form of the one true spirit: Greed. —  Progressive Bloggers
  • Osborne and Stevenson talked with EW. com about how a kung fu instructor -- and a strangled hooker -- helped them create a movie that would not besmirch the Chan name. —  Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch
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This word has been looked up 189 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Used in the same contextWord Family

besmirch:   besmirched ·  besmirching
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

Pronunciations
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/bəˈsmərtʃ/
by American Heritage

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