smudge
UK/smʌd͡ʒ/
smudge noun: a blemish or smear, especially a dark or sooty one.
Noun
smudge (countable and uncountable, plural smudges)
- A blemish or smear, especially a dark or sooty one.
- There was a smudge on the paper.
- Dense smoke, such as that used for fumigation.
- A heap of damp combustibles partially ignited and burning slowly, placed on the windward side of a house, tent, etc. to keep off mosquitoes or other insects.
- Then "smudges" are in vogue,—heaps of damp combustibles placed on the windward side of the house and partially ignited, that their inky steams may smother the mosquitoes while we take our chance. I have had a "smudge" made in a chafing-dish at my bedside, after a serious deliberation between...1842, Caroline Mathilda Kirkland, Forest Life, volume 1, page 144
- We had taken about ten pounds of trout; and the first procedure, after reaching the camp, was to build a smudge or smoke-fire, to drive away these abominable gnats, who, fortunately, take flight with the first whiff of smoke.1859, John Russell Bartlett, anonymous quotee, New York Courier and Enquirer, date unknown, quoted in Dictionary of Americanisms, 2nd edition, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, page 420
- A quantity of herbs used in suffumigation.
- Devil's dirt or asafetida ground together with fenugreek and black cumin seed is used as a smudge against witches and […]2006, Christian Rätsch, Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals, →ISBN
Verb
smudge (third-person singular simple present smudges, present participle smudging, simple past and past participle smudged)
- To obscure by blurring; to smear.
- To soil or smear with dirt.
- To use dense smoke to protect from insects.
- Synonyms:
- fumigate
- To stifle or smother with smoke.
- To burn herbs as a cleansing ritual (suffumigation).
- To subject to ritual burning of herbs (suffumigation, smudging).
- This is easily done using incense to smudge yourself or taking a cleansing bath. To smudge your body use an incense mixture such as sandalwood, lavender, frankincense or myrrh.2013, Rachel Patterson, Pagan Portals - Hoodoo: Folk Magic, →ISBN
Proper noun capitalized: Smudge
Smudge
- A nickname of someone with the surname Smith.
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:Smudge.
smudge meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
smudge in Tamil
- கறை, கறைப்படுத்து, மாசு படுத்து, மாசுப்படுத்து
smudge in Urdu
- دھبہ, دھواں, دھبےدار کرنا, گناہ کرنا
smudge in Bengali
- দাগ, নোংরা চিহ্ন, অস্পষ্ট ছাপ
smudge in Malayalam
- കളങ്കം, കറുത്തപാട്, ഷഡ്പദങ്ങളെ കൊല്ലുവാൻ ഇട്ടിട്ടുള്ള തീ, ശ്വാസംമുട്ടിക്കുന്ന പുക
More languagesFewer languages
- smudge in Kannada
- ಕೊಳೆ, ಕಲೆ, ಚಿತ್ತು, ಮಸಿ
- smudge in Tagalog
- mantsa, dungis, kapol
Examples of smudge in a sentence
- Then "smudges" are in vogue,—heaps of damp combustibles placed on the windward side of the house and partially ignited, that their inky steams may smother the mosquitoes while we take our chance.1842, Caroline Mathilda Kirkland, Forest Life, volume 1, page 144:
- The use of smoke (or "smudges") against the attack of the mosquito is well understood in America and elsewhere.1901 May 24, H. Watkins-Pitchford, “Horse-sickness investigation”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 6, page...
Synonyms of smudge
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of smudge
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | smudges |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | smudges |
| present participle | smudging |
| past participle | smudged |
| past | smudged |
Origin of smudge
Derived from the verb (see below). Doublet of smutch.
From Middle English *smogen (attested in the gerund smogynge (“soiling, smudging”)), of obscure origin. Compare Middle English besmudded, bismuddet (“filthy”), Middle English smod (“filth, obscene behaviour”), Middle Dutch smoddich (“filthy, dirty”), German schmutzig (“dirty, filthy”).
As smiths are often covered in smudges of soot.
Words formed from smudge
Phrases with smudge
Words that rhyme with smudge
8 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about smudge
- What does smudge mean?
- Smudge means a blemish or smear, especially a dark or sooty one.
- What is smudge in Tamil?
- Smudge in Tamil is கறை, கறைப்படுத்து, மாசு படுத்து. See Smudge meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use smudge in a sentence?
- Then "smudges" are in vogue,—heaps of damp combustibles placed on the windward side of the house and partially ignited, that their inky steams may smother the mosquitoes while we take our chance.
- What part of speech is smudge?
- Smudge can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce smudge?
- Smudge is pronounced /smʌd͡ʒ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of smudge?
- The plural of smudge is smudges.
Words near smudge in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: smudge (page history and authors); Smudge (page history and authors); smudge (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); smudge (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); smudge (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); smudge (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); smudge (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-smudge.ogg, en-au-smudge.ogg.
Cite this entry: “smudge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/smudge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.