smearers

Noun

smearer (plural smearers)

1. Someone who spreads a substance across a surface.
   • The walls, strongly built of stones, are still breast-high, and the marks of the smearers’ fingers on the plaster inside plainly visible.1900, Albert B. Lloyd, Uganda to Khartoum, London: Collins’ Clear-Type Press, ’Chapter 12, p. 254
2. (derogatory) Someone who tries to damage another's reputation through slander or innuendo.
   • Spiro Agnew thought it enough to label journalists as liberals in order to establish their untrustworthiness, which is the method of a smearer in all ages.1974, Thomas Griffith, chapter 3, in How True: A Skeptic’s Guide to Believing the News,, Boston: Little, Brown, page 23

   Synonyms:

   libeler, slanderer, vilifier

3. (derogatory) An unskillful painter.
   • […] a picture painted by some German smearer of the early sixteenth century; very ugly, stupid, and unattractive; ill drawn, ill composed, of a uniform hard, vulgar brown.1880, Vernon Lee, “Faustus and Helena”, in Belcaro: Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions, London: W. Satchell, page 91

   Synonyms:

   dauber

4. (Scotland, historical) A worker employed to apply a tar-based salve to sheep to protect their skin during the winter.
   • […] when the smearer had inlaid with his mixture of butter and tar, that number of the fleeces of the living flock which it was his daily task thus to cover from the cold,1807, Robert Heron, The Comforts of Human Life, London: Oddy and Co., Dialogue 4, page 110
5. (derogatory, obsolete) A person without skill or education who attempts to cure diseases.
   • […] neither parte is nowe vsed only of the experte professors therof, but rather of euery smearer, that listeth to abuse them. For as the phisiciens thynke their learnyng sufficient, without practise or experience: so the chirurgien for the moste parte hauyng experience and practise, thinketh it...1565, John Halle, A most excellent and learned vvoorke of chirurgerie, called Chirurgia parua Lanfranci Lanfranke of Mylayne his briefe, London: Thomas Marshe, Letter to the reader

   Synonyms:

   quack

6. Something used for smearing.
   • The polished edge of a slide held between thumb and fingers is touched to a medium-sized fresh drop of blood and pressed against another slide near its end. As soon as the blood spreads across the edge of the smearer, draw it gently and evenly along the lower slide till the drop is exhausted.1905, James Rae Arneill, chapter 4, in Clinical Diagnosis and Urinalysis: A Manual for Students and Practitioners, Philadelphia: Lea Brothers, page 50

See all 7 meanings of smearer