Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being smudged, soiled, or blurred.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or condition of being smudgy.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

smudgy +‎ -ness

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word smudginess.

Examples

  • I've seen some excellent iPhone photography, regardless of smudginess or whatever.

    Debuting Today: Best Camera 2009

  • It was the look of them, partly: the skanky paper, the low-mirth smudginess of their production; but also the dismalness of the schoolyard world they portrayed: discipline versus cheekiness, small victories, practical jokes, jeering, every teacher undernourished, every kid drawn as though he had rickets.

    Kalooki Nights Howard Jacobson 2006

  • I nearly always block out my skies, and so strengthen the other parts of my negatives, that I can rely on a full exposure without fear of heaviness or smudginess.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 Various

  • In a good lantern transparency, it is, of all things, indispensable that the high lights be represented by pure glass, absolutely clean in the sense of its being free from any fog or deposit, to even the slightest degree; it is also necessary that it be free from everything of heaviness of smudginess in the details.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 Various

  • The graphical non-HD smudginess is mitigated by the strong use of lighting, or lack thereof.

    Grand Text Auto Chris Lewis 2009

  • But I don't think it was bitterness that did it as much as it was a genuine alarm on his part that if he didn't begin to say something about the quiescence of this leadership class, its sponginess and its smudginess as some things began to happen that should be applauded in the area of the breakdown of racial segregation, that no one else would and that he then would deserve his mission in life, which was always to be the great scold, the exemplar, the model, the seer, the prophet, so on.

    W.E.B. DuBois: The Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 1994

  • I want to make something all pale smudginess, not an edge, not a line, something that will make people feel chilly and foggy and sad, like they’re missing the person they love most.

    The Other Side of Dark Sarah Smith 2010

  • Stephanie Zacharek in Salon: "Doubt is an intentionally fuzzy movie, and those who respond to it will inevitably use its intentional smudginess as a defense, claiming that we're not supposed to walk away from it with any reasonable certainty: We're not supposed to know who's gay and who's not, who may or may not be an abused kid.

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • Stephanie Zacharek in Salon: "Doubt is an intentionally fuzzy movie, and those who respond to it will inevitably use its intentional smudginess as a defense, claiming that we're not supposed to walk away from it with any reasonable certainty: We're not supposed to know who's gay and who's not, who may or may not be an abused kid.

    GreenCine Daily 2009

  • Stephanie Zacharek in Salon: "Doubt is an intentionally fuzzy movie, and those who respond to it will inevitably use its intentional smudginess as a defense, claiming that we're not supposed to walk away from it with any reasonable certainty: We're not supposed to know who's gay and who's not, who may or may not be an abused kid.

    GreenCine Daily 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.