Other forms: smiting, smites
To smite is to strike somebody a heavy blow. Smite the enemy, smite him down, smiting the rock.
It is archaic and biblical, and it survives chiefly in scripture, in fantasy and in jokes about divine punishment. The past is smote and the participle smitten, which has gone off in an entirely separate direction to mean helplessly in love. Note that the Old English verb meant to smear or daub, and the sense of striking is later.
1verbsmiteTo strike somebody a heavy blow.
“The knight raised his sword to smite his enemy.”
smite is a striking.
Old English smitan meant to smear or daub, from a Germanic root about throwing or smearing. The German schmeissen, to throw, comes from the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*smeyd- — to smear, whisk, strike, rub
Proto-Germanic
*smītaną — to sling; throw; smear
Proto-West Germanic
*smītan
Old English
smītan — to daub, smear, smudge; soil, defile, pollute
Middle English
smiten
English, today
smite
From Middle English smiten, from Old English smītan (“to daub, smear, smudge; soil, defile, pollute”), from Proto-West Germanic smītan, from Proto-Germanic smītaną (“to sling; throw; smear”), from Proto-Indo-European smeyd- (“to smear, whisk, strike, rub”). Cognate with stq smiete (“to throw, toss”), West Frisian smite (“to throw”), Dutch smijten (“to fling, hurl, throw”), German Low German smieten (“to throw, chuck, toss”), German schmeißen (“to fling, throw”), Danish smide (“to throw”), Swedish smita (“to run off (to)”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐍃𐌼𐌴𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (“to besmear, anoint”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA