smutty

English

Etymology

From smut +‎ -y. Related to German schmutzig (“filthy, dirty, smutty”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsmʌti/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌti

Adjective

smutty (comparative smuttier, superlative smuttiest)

1. Soiled with smut; blackened, dirty.
   • 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage, published 1993, page 62:

     She caught up the corner of her skirt and lifted the smutty coffee-pot from the stove.

   • 2007 September 6, Isabel Kershner, “Israel’s Unexpected Spinoff From a Holocaust Trial”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 January 2021:

     Yechiel Szeintuch, a professor of Yiddish literature at the Hebrew University, rejects any link between the smutty Stalags and the writings of K. Tzetnik as “an original sin.” He insists K. Tzetnik’s work was based on reality.

2. (figurative) Obscene, indecent.

   Synonym: off-color

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[The Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter XI, in Capricornia‎^[2], New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 178:

     Prayter said with a smile to the faces looking down, "Rilly—this train's a joke, isn't it!"
     A wag yelled, "Yes—a smutty one!"
     With raucous laughter in his ears, the parson turned and looked for Lace, feeling rather lonely.

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 433:

     Aarfy's buxom trollop had vanished with her smutty cameo ring, and Nurse Duckett was ashamed of him because he had refused to fly more combat missions and would cause a scandal.

3. Affected with the smut fungus.

Derived terms

• smuttily
• smuttiness
• unsmutty

Translations

blackened, dirty

• Spanish: tiznado (es)

obscene

• Irish: graosta
• Plautdietsch: orrein
• Russian: непристо́йный (ru) (nepristójnyj)
• Spanish: obsceno (es), indecente (es)

Verb

smutty (third-person singular simple present smutties, present participle smuttying, simple past and past participle smuttied)

1. (transitive) To make dirty; to soil.
   • 1870 September 1, “Episodes in an Obscure Life”, in The Sunday Magazine, page 713:

     […] but went on smuttying her face and fingers at her little table, so littered with powder and blue and whitey-brown serpent cases that it looked like a Lilliputian arsenal.