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''besmirch'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125204041-00-⌔

besmirch - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

besmirch (third-person singular simple present besmirches, present participle besmirching, simple past and past participle besmirched)

  • (transitive, literary) To make dirty.
    • ✤ Synonyms: soil, sully, tarnish; see also Thesaurus: dirty
  • (transitive) To tarnish something, especially someone’s reputation.
    • ✤ Synonyms: blacken, debase, libel, smear, slander; see also Thesaurus: defame
    • ✤ Antonym: unbesmirch
    • ✤ The newspaper was on a campaign to besmirch the actor.
    • ✤ Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch’d
      With rainy marching in the painful field      1
    • ✤ “It may be,” he replied, “because I will not encounter the dishonor that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. […]”2
    • ✤ Sir Guy might still have slain him without besmirching his knightly honor3

Etymology

From Middle English besmorchen (attested in besmorchid). Compare Middle English bismotered (“bespattered, soiled”). By surface analysis, be- +‎ smirch.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /bɪˈsmɜːtʃ/
  • (General American) IPA: /bɪˈsmɝːt͡ʃ/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Audio (Australian): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)tʃ

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC,: ↩

  2. 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1928, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle: ↩

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