Other forms: smeared, smears, smearing
To smear is to spread something greasy across a surface. Smear it on, smeared with oil, a smear of jam.
It implies a mess rather than an even coat. As a noun, a smear is that mark: a smear on the glass. The other main sense is damaging somebody's reputation with false accusations: a smear campaign, smeared in the press — and it is a serious charge in itself. In medicine, a smear is a sample spread on a slide, and cervical smear is the British name for the screening test.
1verbsmearTo spread something greasy across a surface.
“The toddler smeared chocolate all over the sofa.”
2nounfalseA false accusation intended to damage a reputation.
“The minister said the story about him was a smear by his political enemies.”
smear is a spreading or a slander.
Old English smerian meant to anoint with grease, from a Germanic root for fat. The word meant applying ointment before it meant making a mess, and the reputation sense is nineteenth-century American.
Proto-Germanic
*smirwijaną
Proto-West Germanic
*smirwijan
Old English
smerian
Middle English
smeren
English, today
smear
Built from
From Middle English smeren, smerien, from Old English smerian, smyrian, smierwan (“to anoint or rub with grease, oil, etc.”), from Proto-West Germanic smirwijan, from Proto-Germanic smirwijaną. a doublet of schmear. Cognate with stq smeere, Dutch smeren (“to smear, lubricate”), Low German smeren, German schmieren (“to smear, lubricate”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål smøre (“to lubricate”), Norwegian Nynorsk smørja (“to lubricate”), Swedish smörja (“to grease”), Faroese and Icelandic smyrja.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire