SMIRCH

blot, smear, smirch, spot, stain

(noun) an act that brings discredit to the person who does it; “he made a huge blot on his copybook”

smudge, spot, blot, daub, smear, smirch, slur

(noun) a blemish made by dirt; “he had a smudge on his cheek”

defame, slander, smirch, asperse, denigrate, calumniate, smear, sully, besmirch

(verb) charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone; “The journalists have defamed me!”; “The article in the paper sullied my reputation”

smirch, besmirch

(verb) smear so as to make dirty or stained

Source: WordNet® 3.1

---

Etymology 1

Noun

smirch (countable and uncountable, plural smirches)

Dirt, or a stain.

(figurative) A stain on somebody's reputation.

Verb

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

(transitive) To dirty; to make dirty.

Synonyms: besmirch, soil

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

Synonym: besmirch

Etymology 2

Meld of smear and chirp

Noun

smirch (plural smirches)

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)

Anagrams

• chirms, chrism

Source: Wiktionary

---

Smirch, v. t. Etym: [From the root of smear.]

Definition: To smear with something which stains, or makes dirty; to smutch; to begrime; to soil; to sully. I'll . . . with a kind of umber smirch my face. Shak.

Smirch, n.

Definition: A smutch; a dirty stain.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

---