smear
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: biology
broadcasting
climbing
entertainment
hobbies
lifestyle
media
medicine
music
natural-sciences
radio
sciences
sports
television
Etymology: From Middle English smeren, smerien, from Old English smerian, smyrian, smierwan (“to anoint or rub with grease, oil, etc.”), from Proto-West Germanic *smirwijan, from Proto-Germanic *smirwijaną. Doublet of schmear.
Cognate with Saterland Frisian smeere, Dutch smeren (“to smear, lubricate”), Low German smeren, German schmieren (“to smear, lubricate”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål smøre (“to lubricate”), Norwegian Nynorsk smørja (“to lubricate”), Swedish smörja (“to grease”), Faroese and Icelandic smyrja.
Inflected forms:
form: smears
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: smearing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: smeared
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: smeared
pos: verb
tags: past
form: smears
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To spread (a substance, especially one that colours or is dirty) across a surface by rubbing.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The artist smeared paint over the canvas in broad strokes.
In general, all bodies whose surfaces are even will […] stick to each other, and if a liquid be smeared over either surface, their cohesion will be still the stronger.
Then again these figures take no account of the thousands of beggars who travel free in India. Many of these are religious "Sadhus", dressed often in nothing but a loin-cloth, or even less, and their bodies smeared with ashes. A large number of these men are nothing but impostors, but the Hindu railway staff usually are afraid to interfere with them.
A person smeared with the excrement of a mouse was rendered impotent, according to Pliny the Elder.
Then you would kneel and smear a handful of pomade through my hair, comb it over.
gloss: To cover (a surface with a layer of some substance) by rubbing.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: She smeared her lips with lipstick.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
[…] a Vessel of huge bulk,
Measur’d by Cubit, length, & breadth, and highth,
Smeard round with Pitch,
[…] it’s better if we admit to disliking and hating them, than if we try to smear our feelings over with pseudo-liberal sentimentality.
gloss: To make something dirty.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: A man may bee smeared or grimed, and euerie man shall laugh at him, and yet he himselfe shall not perceiue it a whit.
[…] she returned, carrying Johnnie, his face all smeared with eating,
His hands and forearms, his face, his good shirt and suit are smeared from the dustbins and climbing the fence,
gloss: (of a substance, etc.) To make a surface dirty by covering it.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin
a rust spot smearing the back of the sink
Wet leaves smeared the pavement.
gloss: To damage someone's reputation by slandering, misrepresenting, or otherwise making false accusations about them, their statements, or their actions.
pos: verb
tags: derogatory
transitive
examples: The opposition party attempted to smear the candidate by spreading incorrect and unverifiable rumors about their personal behavior.
May everlasting shame consume
The memory of those who tried
To befoul and smear th’ exalted name
Of one who spurned them in his pride.
1976, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, “J.M.—A Writer’s Tribute” in Writers in Politics, London: Heinemann, 1981, p. 82,
The imperialist foreigners then in the offices of the Nation Newspapers would not allow the African staff to review it. They handled it themselves in order to smear the book and its author and his celebration of Mau Mau resistance.
They’ll smear him on the country’s dial-up bulletin boards as the worst traitor.
gloss: To cause (something) to be messy or not clear by rubbing and spreading it.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out.
Then there are four lines smeared so that I can only read went 5 days ago.
Bird droppings, smeared by the strokes of rain and dried by the heat, streaked its sides.
gloss: To become messy or not clear by being spread.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The paint is still wet — don't touch it or it will smear.
gloss: To write or draw (something) by spreading a substance on a surface.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: ciphers smeared on the windows of condemned shops
smear crude words on the walls in the victim’s own blood as evidence of his final cult-related frenzy
[…] she brought a red daubed finger up to my cheek & began to smear markings on my face.
gloss: To cause (something) to be a particular colour by covering with a substance.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: small wooden dolls smeared red as though with blood
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel-staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
They paid the tonga-wallah double his regular fare and smeared his forehead pink and that of his horse green for good measure.
gloss: To rub (a body part, etc.) across a surface.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: […] he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.
With the lazy appetite of a calf mooning over a salt lick, he smeared his sizable nose against her face,
[…] what was it with all those village people who could not stand on their feet without reaching out to smear their palm on a wall?
gloss: To attempt to remove (a substance) from a surface by rubbing.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: He had […] a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck, with the long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he spoke:
The boatman rowed short and hard […], only pausing at moments swiftly to smear the sweat from his face with an old rag he kept on the bench beside him.
1960, Katherine Anne Porter, “Holiday” in Douglas and Sylvia Angus (eds.), Contemporary American Short Stories, New York: Ballantine, 1983, p. 323,
[…] she stood and shook with silent crying, smearing away her tears with the open palm of her hand.
gloss: To climb without using footholds, using the friction from the shoe to stay on the wall.
pos: verb
gloss: A mark made by smearing.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: This detergent cleans windows without leaving smears.
A smear of decisive lead-coloured paint had been laid on to obliterate Henchard’s name, though its letters dimly loomed through like ships in a fog.
Vast avalanches had left their dirty smears on the opposing slopes,
she bought a couple of rolls filled with a thin smear of potted meat for her breakfast
I could see the roofs of the town on the horizon, and farther off and higher up, a tiny silver ship propped motionless on a smear of pale sea.
gloss: A false or unsupported, malicious statement intended to injure a person's reputation.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: smear campaign
I should have held him quite beneath my Notice, as is all he utters, but that the Appetite of Slander, in many, is too predominant; and, ’tis possible, when the filthiest Fellow throws a Profusion of Dirt, some may chance to stick, if not timely thrown off; I shall endeavour therefore, to wipe away the sooty Smears of this Chimney-sweeper, by relating a simple Fact, which will, I flatter myself, amply confute the malicious Tales of this unprovoked, rancorous Mortal:
“I’d rather not [read the newspaper article]. It’s probably full of falsification and smear. The yellow journalists doubtlessly suggested all sorts of lip-smacking innuendoes.”
gloss: A preparation to be examined under a microscope, made by spreading a thin layer of a substance (such as blood, bacterial culture) on a slide.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A Pap smear (screening test for cervical cancer).
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: I'm going to the doctor's this afternoon for a smear.
gloss: Any of various forms of distortion that make a signal harder to see or hear.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: In television terms, a certain amount of smear, ringing, and anticipatory overshoot are indigenous to VSB transmission.
Results show the reduction in intelligibility produced by changing the filter condition was much greater than reductions caused by altering smear duration.
gloss: A maneuver in which the shoe is placed onto the holdless rock, and the friction from the shoe keeps it in contact
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A rough glissando in jazz music.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
Derived words: antismear
cytosmear
asmear
besmear
desmear
nonsmearing
smearable
smearer
smear the queer
unsmeared
blood smear
cervical smear
leap smear
marrow smear
Papanicolaou smear
pap smear
smear campaign
smear case
smear-case
smear frame
Smeargate
smearless
smearproof
smear test
smeary
smirch
Translations: