Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To soil, stain, or dirty with or as if with a smearing agent: "their tough, hostile faces, smirched by the grime and rust” ( Henry Roth).
- v. To dishonor; defame.
- n. Something, such as a blot, smear, or stain, that smirches.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To stain; smear; soil; smutch; besmirch.
- Figuratively, to degrade; reduce in honor, dignity, fame, repute, or the like: as, to smirch one's own or another's reputation.
- n. A soiling mark or smear; a darkening stain; a smutch.
Wiktionary
- v. to make dirty
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To smear with something which stains, or makes dirty; to smutch; to begrime; to soil; to sully.
- n. A smutch; a dirty stain.
WordNet 3.0
- v. smear so as to make dirty or stained
- n. a blemish made by dirt
- v. charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone
- n. an act that brings discredit to the person who does it
Etymologies
- Middle English smorchen.
Examples
“Lewis puts this very well, Eugenics have made certain that only demi-gods will now be born: psycho-analysis that none of them shall lose or smirch his divinity: economics that they shall have to hand all that demi-gods require.”
“Martin, she seemed to see the smirch left upon him by his surroundings.”
“Every hand but his was black with soot, and his was guiltless of the smirch of Hooniah's pot.”
“She had wandered away amid the complexities and smirch and withering heats of the great world, and she had returned, simple, and clean, and wholesome.”
“He was soldierly, flip, and intense about the defense of his honor, even when the smirch was well deserved or the fault his own.”
“He came out of the Keating Five scandal (remember?) with nary a smirch while felony convictions were falling like rain.”
McCain In New Hampshire Paper: Without More Troops, We Won't Win
“I wouldn't be smirch anyone for living were they want to live thoufh - people just go down different paths is all.”
Palin: The "Best Of America," The "Real America," Is In Small Towns
“What a smirch on the record of Kansas University by Paula Sayles on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 3: 14: 59 PM”
“So shall no foulness, no dark smirch be seen, if laughter shown thy teeth their lips between.”
“Mind you, not sure if they want to know we smirching is either … smirch (smûrch) tr. v., smirched, smirch·ing, smirch·es.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘smirch’.
-
Mark
scrawl, blemish, spot, mar, damage, speckle, bespatter, splash, smirch, stain, tattoo, impress and 20 more...
-
Incorrectum
Mistakes, Errors and Accidents.
nihilartikel, solecism, bevue, corrigendum, acyrology, cacoepy, fido, hamartithia, jeofail, mésalliance, mumpsimus, pseudochronism and 63 more...
jennasaisquoi As You Like It 1.3.105-106:
I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber smirch my face.
The like do you, so shall we pass along,
And never stir assailants. Dec 17, 2008