Word.ws English Dictionary

smite

/smaɪt/

smite verb: to hit; to strike.

Verb

smite (third-person singular simple present smites, present participle smiting, simple past smote or smited or (obsolete) smit, past participle smitten or smote or smited or (obsolete) smit)

  1. (archaic) To hit; to strike.
    • Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 5:39
    • That elf-maiden smote with her hand so white,
      “Sorrow and sickness on thee alight”
      That elf-maiden smote with her cap so small,
      “No more shall priest's benison on thee fall!”1847 September 11, William J. Thoms, “The Folk-lore of Shakespeare”, in The Athenaeum, London, page 958, column 1
  2. To strike down or kill with godly force.
    • And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 3:19–20
    • For it is written, I will ſmite the Shepheard, and the Sheep ſhall be ſcattered. […] Becauſe the Shepheard was to be ſmitten, they as Sheepe muſt be ſcattered. The Scope of which place is, to prove Chriſt the true Paſtor of the Flocke, even by his ſmiting and abaſement; and ſo moſt aptly alledged...1653, Thomas Taylor, “Peters Repentance. Marke 14.27.”, in The Works of that Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Dr. Thom. Taylor, Sometimes Minister of the Gospel in Aldermanbury, London. Not Hitherto...
  3. To injure with divine power.
    • VERSE 12. And the fourth angel ſounded, and the third part of the ſun was ſmitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the ſtars, ſo as the third part of them was darkened, and the day ſhone not for a third part of it, and the night likewiſe. […] [T]his Jeſus which ſignifies the...1746, Lodowick[e] Muggleton, “CHAP. XXV [of the Book of Revelation].”, in True Interpretation of All the Chief Texts, and Mysterious Sayings and Visions Opened, of the Whole Book of the Revelation of...
  4. To kill violently; to slay.
    • "She is sitting in the great hall even now to do justice upon those who would have smitten thee and the Lion."1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
  5. To put to rout in battle; to overthrow by war.
    • […]and it turned out, if you just dumped pure oxygen and kerosene into the combustion chamber, the torpedo would travel at fairly-high speed... just instantaneously in all directions at once, disassembling itself, and any nearby people, with considerable enthusiasm. Explaining that this was...2021 January 20, Drachinifel, 5:49 from the start, in Type 93 Long Lance Torpedo - Long Range Hole Poking Device, archived from the original on 01 Nov 2022
  6. To afflict; to chasten; to punish.
    • Let us not mistake the goodness of God, nor imagine that because he smites us, therefore we are forsaken by him.1688, William Wake, Preparation for Death
    • A country deprived of the Ganges is ſmitten; a family without learning is ſmitten; a woman without a child is ſmitten; a ſacrifice without the Brahman's rights is ſmitten.1787 December, Charles Wilkins, “The Heetopades of Veeshnoo-Sarma. Translated from the Sanskreet Language. By Charles Wilkins.”, in The Edinburgh Magazine, or Literary Miscellany, volume VI, number...
  7. (figuratively, now only in passive) To strike with love or infatuation.
    • Bob was smitten with Laura from the first time he saw her.
    • I was really smitten by the color combination, and soon repainted the entire house.

Noun

smite (plural smites)

  1. (archaic, rare) A heavy strike with a weapon, tool, or the hand.
    • On the other hand , your soft-headed, softhearted sentimentalist, whose heart is in his waistcoat pocket, always at hand for use, he who picks out the pretty parts of modern novels, and the tender parts of affecting tales, never hears of two young people meeting one another, but he begins to think...1844, The Mysterious Man. A Novel. By the Author of Ben Bradshawe; the Man Without a Head [i.e. Frederick Chamier, T. C. Newby, page 192
    • ‘That is just what I was about to venture to propose,’returned the doctor with a smite. But the words were hardly uttered, before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded by an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the very blood of the two gentlemen below.1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 45

Proper noun capitalized: Smite

Smite

  1. A river in Nottinghamshire, with its headwaters in Leicestershire, England, which joins the River Devon, near Shelton.

smite meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

smite in Tamil

அடி

smite in Urdu

مارنا, پیٹنا, ذلیل کرنا

smite in Bengali

জোরে আঘাত করা, পরাস্ত করা

smite in Telugu

to smite; to pluck flowers
తునుము tunumu
More languagesFewer languages
smite in Kannada
ಮೋದು
smite in Sanskrit
हन्ति hánti
smite in Arabic
ضَرَبَ ḍaraba

Examples of smite in a sentence

  • For it is written, I will ſmite the Shepheard, and the Sheep ſhall be ſcattered. […] Becauſe the Shepheard was to be ſmitten, they as Sheepe muſt be ſcattered.1653, Thomas Taylor, “Peters Repentance. Marke 14.27.”, in The Works of that Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Dr. Thom. Taylor, Sometimes...
  • See what the charms that smite the simple heart, // Not touch'd by Nature, and not reach'd by art.1757, Alexander Pope, The Works of Alexander Pope: Esq., with His Last Corrections, Additions, and Improvements, volume 5, London: Printed...
  • Beale, who had not been driving very well, took a smite at his ball and sent it curving far away to the left into a mess of gorse of bramble bushes.2007, Rupert Penny, Policeman's Holiday, Ramble House, →ISBN, page 82:
  • As soon as the second scout fell dead, Catullus slammed the Alliance warrior with holy fire, followed quickly by a mind blast and a smite.2010, William Sims Bainbridge, The Warcraft Civilization: Social Science in a Virtual World, MIT Press, page 135:

All 18 example sentences with smite

Forms of smite

Verb
third-person singular presentsmites
present participlesmiting
pastsmote
pastsmited
past participlesmitten
past participlesmote
past participlesmited
past (obsolete)smit
past participle (obsolete)smit
alternative form (obsolete)smight
Noun
pluralsmites

Past tense of smite: smote or smited

Origin of smite

From Middle English smiten, from Old English smītan (“to daub, smear, smudge; soil, defile, pollute”), from Proto-West Germanic *smītan, from Proto-Germanic *smītaną (“to sling; throw; smear”), from Proto-Indo-European *smeyd- (“to smear, whisk, strike, rub”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian smiete (“to throw, toss”), West Frisian smite (“to throw”), Dutch smijten (“to fling, hurl, throw”), German Low German smieten (“to throw, chuck, toss”), German schmeißen (“to fling, throw”), Danish smide (“to throw”), Swedish smita (“to run off (to)”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐍃𐌼𐌴𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (bismeitan, “to besmear, anoint”).

Words formed from smite

Words that rhyme with smite

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about smite

What does smite mean?
Smite means to hit; to strike.
What is smite in Tamil?
Smite in Tamil is அடி. See Smite meaning in Tamil.
How do you use smite in a sentence?
For it is written, I will ſmite the Shepheard, and the Sheep ſhall be ſcattered. […] Becauſe the Shepheard was to be ſmitten, they as Sheepe muſt be ſcattered.
What part of speech is smite?
Smite can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce smite?
Smite is pronounced /smaɪt/.
What is the past tense of smite?
The past tense of smite is smote.

Words near smite in the dictionary

  1. smishing
  2. smit
  3. Smita
  4. smitch
  5. smitches
  6. smite
  7. smite hip and thigh
  8. smited
  9. smiteful
  10. smiter
  11. smiters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: smite (page history and authors); Smite (page history and authors); smite (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); smite (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); smite (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); తునుము (Telugu) (page history and authors); smite (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); हन्ति (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-smite.wav.

Cite this entry: “smite.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/smite. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.