smut
English
Etymology
From Middle English smutten (“to defile, debase”), related to German Schmutz (“filth, dirt, smut”) and schmutzen (“to make dirty, stain”).
Compare also Old English smitta (“smear; blot; mark; stain; pollution”), Old English besmītan (“to besmut; defile; dirty; pollute; contaminate”).
Pronunciation
Noun
smut (countable and uncountable, plural smuts)
- (uncountable) Soot.
- (countable) A flake of ash or soot.
- 1915, Edgar Jepson, “The Reluctant Duke”, in Happy Pollyooly: The Rich Little Poor Girl, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 135:
- She reached it soon after half-past two. She found its gloomy nineteenth-century façade, black with the smuts of ninety years, a little daunting, and mounted its broad steps in some trepidation. But she rang the bell hard and knocked firmly.
- 1989, H. T. Willetts (translator), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (author), August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 56:
- “You can rely on me!” Varya said, still more earnestly and enthusiastically, still leaning heavily on the counter, noticing briefly and forgetting at once that her bare elbow had crushed a stray smut from the Primus mender's booth.
- 2012, Kasey Michaels, A Masquerade in the Moonlight:
- “Do I have a smut on my nose, Mr. Donovan? You've been staring at me for a full minute. It's most disconcerting, you know.”
- (uncountable) Sexually vulgar material; something that is sexual in a dirty way; pornographic material.
- (uncountable) Obscene language; ribaldry; obscenity.
- Addison
- He does not stand upon decency […] but will talk smut, though a priest and his mother be in the room.
- Addison
- (derogatory) A promiscuous woman.
- Any of a range of fungi, mostly Ustilaginomycetes, that cause plant disease in grasses, including cereal crops; the disease so caused.
- (mining) Bad, soft coal containing earthy matter, found in the immediate locality of faults.
Synonyms
- (promiscuous woman): slut
Derived terms
Translations
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Verb
smut (third-person singular simple present smuts, present participle smutting, simple past and past participle smutted)
- (transitive, intransitive) To stain (or be stained) with soot or other dirt.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Mortimer to this entry?)
- (transitive) To taint (grain, etc.) with the smut fungus.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)
- (intransitive) To become tainted by the smut fungus.
- 1836, New England Farmer (volume 14, page 313)
- It smutted to a far greater degree than the year before, say three fourths, or more. I obtained but little more than the seed sown, and that was handsome wheat. This failure I imputed to the same supposed cause which operated the last year.
- 1836, New England Farmer (volume 14, page 313)
- (transitive) To clear of the smut fungus.
- to smut grain for the mill
Anagrams
Irish
Etymology
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Noun
smut m (genitive singular smuit, nominative plural smuit)
Declension
Synonyms
- (rostrum): rostram
Derived terms
- smutach, smutúil (“stumpy; curtailed, short; snouty; pug-nosed; sulky”, adjective)
- smutaireacht f (“(act of) sulking”)
- smután m (“stump; chunk of wood”)
- smutmhadra m (“pug-dog”)
Verb
smut (present analytic smutann, future analytic smutfaidh, verbal noun smutadh, past participle smuta)
- (transitive) truncate, shorten
- Alternative form of smiot (“hit, strike; smash; chip, chop; pare, whittle; fritter”)
Conjugation
* indirect relative
† archaic or dialect form
References
- Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “smut”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
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- en:Mining
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- Requests for quotations/Mortimer
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- en:Fungi
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