smatch

English

Etymology

From Middle English smacchen, smecchen (“to taste”), from Old English smæċċan (“to taste”), from Proto-Germanic *smakkōną, *smakōną, *smakkijaną (“to taste”), from Proto-Indo-European *smeh₂g- (“to taste”). Cognate with West Frisian smeitse, smeitsje (“to taste”), Dutch smaken (“to taste”), German schmecken (“to taste”), Danish smage (“to taste”), Norwegian smake (“to taste”), Norwegian smak (“a taste”), Lithuanian smagù (“cheerful, enjoyable, pleasant”).

Noun

smatch (plural smatches)

1. smack, taste
   • Template:RQ:Shakespeare Caesar

     Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in it

2. tincture
3. trace, small quantity, smidge, smattering or smidgen

Verb

smatch (third-person singular simple present smatches, present participle smatching, simple past and past participle smatched)

1. (intransitive) To have a taste, smack.
2. (transitive) To have a taste or sample of, smack of, taste.
   • 1578, John Banister, The Historie of Man, from the most approved Authorities in this Present Age:

     Allowing his description therein to retain and smatche of veritie

3. (obsolete) To smack.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “smatch”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Maths C