smirch

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /smɜː(ɹ)t͡ʃ/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)tʃ

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Etymology 1

From Middle English *smorchen ("to spatter, soil"; attested in besmorchid (“bespattered, soiled all over”)), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a derivative of Middle English smeoren, smuren, smeren (“to smear”) or related to Middle English smotry (“sooty, grimy”). Compare also Middle English bismotered (“bespattered, soiled”), Old French esmorcher (“to torture”), Middle English smoterly, smoterlich (“besmirched”), modern English smut.

Alternative forms

• smurch (obsolete), smerch (obsolete)

Noun

smirch (countable and uncountable, plural smirches)

1. (archaic) Dirt, or a stain.
   • 1998, Michael Foss, People of the First Crusade, →ISBN, page 6:

     Too often, in the years between 800 and 1050, the everyday sun declined through the smirch of flame and smoke of a monastery or town robbed and burnt.

2. (figurative, archaic) A stain on somebody's reputation.
   • 2008, W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, →ISBN, page 33:

     there were some business transactions which savored of dangerous speculation, if not dishonesty; and around it all lay the smirch of the Freedmen's Bank.

Translations

dirt, stain

• Czech: skvrna (cs) f

Verb

smirch (third-person singular simple present smirches, present participle smirching, simple past and past participle smirched)

1. (transitive, archaic) To dirty; to make dirty.

   Synonyms: besmirch, soil

   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], lines 101–104:

     CELIA. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire, / And with a kind of umber smirch my face; / The like do you; so shall we pass along, / And never stir assailants.

   • 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 10, page 108:

     Girls thought that by leaping over the fires without being smirched they made sure of a happy marriage.

2. (transitive, figurative, archaic) To harm the reputation of; to smear or slander.

   Synonym: besmirch

Derived terms

• besmirch

Translations

to dirty

• Bulgarian: изцапвам (bg) (izcapvam), опетнявам (bg) (opetnjavam)
• Czech: špinit (cs) impf
• Dutch: vuil maken
• French: salir (fr)
• Galician: ensuciar (gl), manchar (gl), lixar (gl)
• German: beschmutzen (de), verschmutzen (de)
• Russian: пятна́ть (ru) impf (pjatnátʹ), мара́ть (ru) impf (marátʹ)
• Spanish: ensuciar (es)
• Ukrainian: плямити (pljamyty), зама́рувати (zamáruvaty)

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “smirch”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Etymology 2

Blend of smear +‎ chirp.

Noun

smirch (plural smirches)

1. (astronomy) A chirp of radiation power from an astronomical body that has a smeared appearance on its plot in the time-frequency plane (usually associated with massive bodies orbiting supermassive black holes)
   • 2003, B. S. Sathyaprakash, BF Schutz, “Templates for stellar mass black holes falling into supermassive black holes”, in Classical and Quantum Gravity, volume 20, number 10:

     The strain h(t) produced by a smirch in LISA is given by h(t) = −-A(t)cos[(t) + φ(t)]

   • 2005, John M. T. Thompson, Advances in Astronomy: From the Big Bang to the Solar System, →ISBN, page 133:

     By observing a smirch, LISA offers a unique opportunity to directly map the spacetime geometry around the central object and test whether or not this structure is in accordance with the expectations of general realtivity.

Anagrams

• chirms, chrism