Word.ws English Dictionary

smudging

smudging is the present participle and gerund of smudge.

Noun

smudging (plural smudgings)

  1. The act of something being smudged.
  2. A stain or smear left by something being smudged.
    • Besides, the body paint would probably be visible on the sheets as dark smudgings, since the films were merely in black and white.2004, Mark Thompson, Leather Folk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, page 88
  3. Suffumigation.
    • One of the most common forms of purification is done with smoke, using some kind of smoking or smudging.2002, Raven Kaldera, Tannin Schwartzstein, The Urban Primitive: Paganism in the Concrete Jungle, page 36

Meaning of smudge

Verb

smudge (third-person singular simple present smudges, present participle smudging, simple past and past participle smudged)

  1. To obscure by blurring; to smear.
    Synonyms:
    blur, smear
  2. To soil or smear with dirt.
    Synonyms:
    befoul, smutch, soil, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood), bedizen, befile
  3. To use dense smoke to protect from insects.
    Synonyms:
    fumigate
  4. To stifle or smother with smoke.
  5. (intransitive) To burn herbs as a cleansing ritual (suffumigation).
  6. (transitive) 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

See all 11 meanings of smudge

Forms of smudging

pluralsmudgings

Questions about smudging

What does smudging mean?
Smudging means the act of something being smudged.
What is smudging the present participle and gerund of?
Smudging is the present participle and gerund of smudge.
What part of speech is smudging?
Smudging is a noun.
What is the plural of smudging?
The plural of smudging is smudgings.

Words near smudging in the dictionary

  1. smudgey
  2. smudgier
  3. smudgiest
  4. smudgily
  5. smudginess
  6. smudging
  7. smudgings
  8. smudgy
  9. smug
  10. smugfest
  11. smugfests

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: smudging (page history and authors); smudge (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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Cite this entry: “smudging.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/smudging. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.