Other forms: besmirched, besmirching
To besmirch is to damage somebody's good name. Besmirch his reputation, besmirched by the scandal, refuse to besmirch her.
It nearly always takes reputation, name or memory, and it is formal to the point of being slightly theatrical — nobody besmirches anything in ordinary speech. The literal sense is to dirty. Note smirch, the base word; and that be- here makes a verb of it, as in bedeck and bedazzle.
1verbbesmirchTo damage somebody's good name.
“The newspaper tried to besmirch his reputation with false stories.”
besmirch is a damaging of reputation.
Also accepted in games: defame
Be- plus smirch, from Middle English besmorchen, to discolour or soil. The literal sense of dirtying came first.
Middle English
besmorchen
English, today
besmirch
From Middle English besmorchen (attested in besmorchid). Compare Middle English bismotered (“bespattered, soiled”). by surface analysis, en + be + smirch.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire