/smæk/
OriginThe noun is from Middle English smac, smak, smacke, from Old English smæc, smæċċ (“taste, smatch”), from Proto-West Germanic *smakku, from Proto-Germanic *smakkuz (“a taste”), from Proto-Indo-European *smegʰ-, *smeg- (“to taste”). The verb is from Middle English smaken.
Cognate with English dialectal smatch, Scots smak (“scent, smell, taste, flavour”), Saterland Frisian Smoak (“taste”), West Frisian smaak (“taste”), Dutch smaak (“taste”), German Schmack, Geschmack (“taste”), Danish smag (“taste”), Swedish and Norwegian smak (“taste”), Norwegian smekke . Akin to Old English smæċċan (“to taste, smack”). More at smatch.
- countable, uncountableA distinct flavor, especially if slight.
“rice pudding with a smack of cinnamon”
“I did not call him fool, and vex my friend, / But quietly allowed experiment, / Encouraged him to dust his drink, and now / Grate lignum vitæ now bruise so-called grains / Of Paradise, and now, for pe”
“But take it: if the smack is sour / The better for the embittered hour; […]”
- countable, uncountableA slight trace of something; a smattering.
“He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him too.”
“I like my cousins in Holland immensely, but I feel more sib to the Northerners. Your description of Lofoten is fine. I can see them. They must be enchanting in their way, cod's head and tails or no. T”
- slang, uncountableHeroin.
“Claude overdosed on smack in a Chicago flophouse three years later.”
- Northern-England, countable, uncountableA form of fried potato; a scallop.
- A small sailing vessel, commonly rigged as a sloop, used chiefly in the coasting and fishing trade and often called a fishing smack
“But without Union reinforcement, as many men as could be packed into a mere fishing smack could take the fort, Meigs wrote to Washington.”
- collectiveA group of jellyfish.
- A sharp blow; a slap. See also: spank.
- The sound of a loud kiss.
“he took the bride about the neck. And kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack.”
“Then he told them of the princess, how she came to him, and how much she had to kiss him to get the whistle, when nobody saw or heard it over in the wood - "I must get on with these lies if the vat is”
- A quick, sharp noise, as of the lips when suddenly separated, or of a whip.
- transitiveTo get the flavor of.
“He soon smacked the taste of physic hidden in this sweetness.”
- intransitiveTo have a particular taste; used with of.
“1820-25, Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia
He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf — our crug — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden p”
- intransitiveTo indicate or suggest something; used with of.
“Her reckless behavior smacks of pride.”
“All sects, all ages, smack of this vice.”
- To slap or hit someone.
- To make a smacking sound.
“A horse neighed, and a whip smacked, there was a whistle, and the sound of a cart wheel.”
- To strike a child (usually on the buttocks) as a form of discipline. (normal U.S. and Canadian term spank)
- To wetly separate the lips, making a noise, after tasting something or in expectation of a treat.
“But when, obedient to the mode / Of panegyric, courtly ode / The bard bestrides, his annual hack, / In vain I taste, and sip and smack, / I find no flavour of the Sack.”
- To kiss with a close compression of the lips, so as to make a sound when they separate.
- not-comparableAs if with a smack or slap; smartly; sharply.
“Right smack in the middle of getting ready to leave.”
“She fell smack on her face.”
“After one early moment in their courtship, Franny expresses, "That night I could feel my beauty standing up inside me for the first time in my life." These heightened scenes of discovery are offered s”
- A surname from German.
- An Apache-based solution stack consisting of Spark, Mesos, Akka, Cassandra, and Kafka.
Formssmacks(plural) · smacks(present, singular, third-person) · smacking(participle, present) · smacked(participle, past) · smacked(past) · Smacks(plural)