/smaɪt/
OriginFrom Middle English smiten, from Old English smītan (“to daub, smear, smudge; soil, defile, pollute”), from Proto-West Germanic *smītan, from Proto-Germanic *smītaną (“to sling; throw; smear”), from Proto-Indo-European *smeyd- (“to smear, whisk, strike, rub”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian smiete (“to throw, toss”), West Frisian smite (“to throw”), Dutch smijten (“to fling, hurl, throw”), German Low German smieten (“to throw, chuck, toss”), German schmeißen (“to fling, throw”), Danish smide (“to throw”), Swedish smita (“to run off (to)”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐍃𐌼𐌴𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (bismeitan, “to besmear, anoint”).
- archaicTo hit; to strike.
“Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
“That elf-maiden smote with her hand so white,
“Sorrow and sickness on thee alight”
That elf-maiden smote with her cap so small,
“No more shall priest's benison on thee fall!””
“A harp can give out but a certain quantity of sound, however heavily it is smitten.”
- To strike down or kill with godly force.
“And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after ”
“For it is written, I will ſmite the Shepheard, and the Sheep ſhall be ſcattered. […] Becauſe the Shepheard was to be ſmitten, they as Sheepe muſt be ſcattered. The Scope of which place is, to prove Ch”
- To injure with divine power.
“VERSE 12. And the fourth angel ſounded, and the third part of the ſun was ſmitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the ſtars, ſo as the third part of them was darkened, and the d”
- To kill violently; to slay.
“"She is sitting in the great hall even now to do justice upon those who would have smitten thee and the Lion."”
- To put to rout in battle; to overthrow by war.
“[…]and it turned out, if you just dumped pure oxygen and kerosene into the combustion chamber, the torpedo would travel at fairly-high speed... just instantaneously in all directions at once, disassem”
- To afflict; to chasten; to punish.
“Let us not mistake the goodness of God, nor imagine that because he smites us, therefore we are forsaken by him.”
“A country deprived of the Ganges is ſmitten; a family without learning is ſmitten; a woman without a child is ſmitten; a ſacrifice without the Brahman's rights is ſmitten.”
- figurativelyTo strike with love or infatuation.
“Bob was smitten with Laura from the first time he saw her.”
“I was really smitten by the color combination, and soon repainted the entire house.”
“See what the charms that smite the simple heart, // Not touch'd by Nature, and not reach'd by art.”
- archaic, rareA heavy strike with a weapon, tool, or the hand.
“On the other hand , your soft-headed, softhearted sentimentalist, whose heart is in his waistcoat pocket, always at hand for use, he who picks out the pretty parts of modern novels, and the tender par”
“‘That is just what I was about to venture to propose,’returned the doctor with a smite. But the words were hardly uttered, before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded by an expression of”
“Beale, who had not been driving very well, took a smite at his ball and sent it curving far away to the left into a mess of gorse of bramble bushes.”
- A river in Nottinghamshire, with its headwaters in Leicestershire, England, which joins the River Devon, near Shelton.
Formssmites(present, singular, third-person) · smiting(participle, present) · smote(past) · smited(past) · smit(obsolete, past) · smitten(participle, past) · smote(participle, past) · smited(participle, past) · smit(obsolete, participle, past) · smight(alternative, obsolete) · smites(plural)