smutch
/smʌt͡ʃ/
smutch verb: to soil, stain or smudge.
Verb
smutch (third-person singular simple present smutches, present participle smutching, simple past and past participle smutched)
- To soil, stain or smudge.
- Why, that’s my bawcock. What, hast smutch’d thy nose?
They say it is a copy out of mine.c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount... - Have you seene but a bright Lilly grow,
Before rude hands have touch’d it?
Have you mark’d but the fall of Snow,
Before the soyle hath smutch’d it?1616, Ben Jonson, The Divell is an Asse, London, published 1641, act II, scene 6, page 26
- Why, that’s my bawcock. What, hast smutch’d thy nose?
Noun
smutch (plural smutches)
- A stain, smudge or blot.
- As let a man sticke a Candle to a stone wall, though the Candle do not burne through it, yet it will leaue a shrewd smutch behind it, soyling the wall, so as it will not easily be wyped out. Thus it is with tentations, though they doe not all the mischiefe they would and might doe, they will yet be...1629, John Smith, “An Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer”, in Essex doue, presenting the world with a few of her oliue branches, London: George Edwardes, page 124
- […] Examine well
His milk-white hand. The palm is hardly clean—
But here and there an ugly smutch appears.
Foh! ’twas a bribe that left it.1785, William Cowper, “Book IV. The Winter Evening.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, page 168
Examples of smutch in a sentence
- And then in came a wee girl of seven, with dirty face and pure blue eyes and a smutched and insufficient dress.1909, O. Henry, “Supply and Demand”, in Options, New York: Harper, page 126:
- As let a man sticke a Candle to a stone wall, though the Candle do not burne through it, yet it will leaue a shrewd smutch behind it, soyling the wall, so as it will not easily be wyped out.1629, John Smith, “An Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer”, in Essex doue, presenting the world with a few of her oliue branches, London...
- Strether felt his character receive, for the instant, a smutch from all the wrong things he had suspected or believed.1903 September 28, Henry James, The Ambassadors, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC:
- Looking out of her window, she was alerted by a smutch of bronze light glowering on this Anglo-Flemish landscape.1979, Patrick White, The Twyborn Affair, Penguin, published 1981, Part 3, p. 411:
Synonyms of smutch
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of smutch
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | smutches |
| present participle | smutching |
| past participle | smutched |
| past | smutched |
| Noun | |
| plural | smutches |
Origin of smutch
Perhaps an alteration of smudge, smatch, or smooch.
Words formed from smutch
Questions about smutch
- What does smutch mean?
- Smutch means to soil, stain or smudge.
- How do you use smutch in a sentence?
- And then in came a wee girl of seven, with dirty face and pure blue eyes and a smutched and insufficient dress.
- What part of speech is smutch?
- Smutch can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce smutch?
- Smutch is pronounced /smʌt͡ʃ/.
- What is the past tense of smutch?
- The past tense of smutch is smutched.
Words near smutch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: smutch (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-smutch.wav.
Cite this entry: “smutch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/smutch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.