/smɪə(ɹ)/, /smiɚ/, /smɪɚ/
OriginFrom Middle English smeren, smerien, from Old English smerian, smyrian, smierwan (“to anoint or rub with grease, oil, etc.”), from Proto-West Germanic *smirwijan, from Proto-Germanic *smirwijaną. Doublet of schmear.
Cognate with Saterland Frisian smeere, Dutch smeren, Low German smeren, German schmieren.
- transitiveTo spread (a substance, especially one that colours or is dirty) across a surface by rubbing.
“The artist smeared paint over the canvas in broad strokes.”
“In general, all bodies whose surfaces are even will […] stick to each other, and if a liquid be smeared over either surface, their cohesion will be still the stronger.”
“Then again these figures take no account of the thousands of beggars who travel free in India. Many of these are religious "Sadhus", dressed often in nothing but a loin-cloth, or even less, and their ”
- transitiveTo cover (a surface with a layer of some substance) by rubbing.
“She smeared her lips with lipstick.”
“Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.”
“[…] a Vessel of huge bulk,
Measur’d by Cubit, length, & breadth, and highth,
Smeard round with Pitch,”
- transitiveTo make something dirty.
“A man may bee smeared or grimed, and euerie man shall laugh at him, and yet he himselfe shall not perceiue it a whit.”
“[…] she returned, carrying Johnnie, his face all smeared with eating,”
“His hands and forearms, his face, his good shirt and suit are smeared from the dustbins and climbing the fence,”
- transitive(of a substance, etc.) To make a surface dirty by covering it.
“a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin”
“a rust spot smearing the back of the sink”
“Wet leaves smeared the pavement.”
- transitiveTo cause (something) to be messy or not clear by rubbing and spreading it.
“When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out.”
“Then there are four lines smeared so that I can only read went 5 days ago.”
“Bird droppings, smeared by the strokes of rain and dried by the heat, streaked its sides.”
- intransitiveTo become messy or not clear by being spread.
“The paint is still wet — don't touch it or it will smear.”
- transitiveTo write or draw (something) by spreading a substance on a surface.
“ciphers smeared on the windows of condemned shops”
“smear crude words on the walls in the victim’s own blood as evidence of his final cult-related frenzy”
“[…] she brought a red daubed finger up to my cheek & began to smear markings on my face.”
- transitiveTo cause (something) to be a particular colour by covering with a substance.
“small wooden dolls smeared red as though with blood”
“the fences and outhouses
built of barrel-staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green”
“They paid the tonga-wallah double his regular fare and smeared his forehead pink and that of his horse green for good measure.”
- transitiveTo rub (a body part, etc.) across a surface.
“[…] he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.”
“With the lazy appetite of a calf mooning over a salt lick, he smeared his sizable nose against her face,”
“[…] what was it with all those village people who could not stand on their feet without reaching out to smear their palm on a wall?”
- transitiveTo attempt to remove (a substance) from a surface by rubbing.
“He had […] a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck, with the long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he spoke:”
“The boatman rowed short and hard […], only pausing at moments swiftly to smear the sweat from his face with an old rag he kept on the bench beside him.”
“1960, Katherine Anne Porter, “Holiday” in Douglas and Sylvia Angus (eds.), Contemporary American Short Stories, New York: Ballantine, 1983, p. 323,
[…] she stood and shook with silent crying, smearing”
- To climb without using footholds, using the friction from the shoe to stay on the wall.
- countable, uncountableA mark made by smearing.
“This detergent cleans windows without leaving smears.”
“A smear of decisive lead-coloured paint had been laid on to obliterate Henchard’s name, though its letters dimly loomed through like ships in a fog.”
“Vast avalanches had left their dirty smears on the opposing slopes,”
- countable, uncountableA false or unsupported, malicious statement intended to injure a person's reputation.
“smear campaign”
“I should have held him quite beneath my Notice, as is all he utters, but that the Appetite of Slander, in many, is too predominant; and, ’tis possible, when the filthiest Fellow throws a Profusion of ”
““I’d rather not [read the newspaper article]. It’s probably full of falsification and smear. The yellow journalists doubtlessly suggested all sorts of lip-smacking innuendoes.””
- countable, uncountableA preparation to be examined under a microscope, made by spreading a thin layer of a substance (such as blood, bacterial culture) on a slide.
- countable, uncountableA Pap smear (screening test for cervical cancer).
“I'm going to the doctor's this afternoon for a smear.”
- uncountableAny of various forms of distortion that make a signal harder to see or hear.
“In television terms, a certain amount of smear, ringing, and anticipatory overshoot are indigenous to VSB transmission.”
“Results show the reduction in intelligibility produced by changing the filter condition was much greater than reductions caused by altering smear duration.”
- countable, uncountableA maneuver in which the shoe is placed onto the holdless rock, and the friction from the shoe keeps it in contact
- countable, uncountableA rough glissando in jazz music.
Formssmears(present, singular, third-person) · smearing(participle, present) · smeared(participle, past) · smeared(past) · smears(plural)
Source: Wiktionary