smudges

Noun

smudge (countable and uncountable, plural smudges)

1. A blemish or smear, especially a dark or sooty one.
   • There was a smudge on the paper.

   Synonyms:

   blur, smutch, stain

2. Dense smoke, such as that used for fumigation.
3. (US) 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
4. (especially) 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

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