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Smear   /smɪr/   Listen
Smear

verb
(past & past part. smeared; pres. part. smearing)
1.
Stain by smearing or daubing with a dirty substance.
2.
Make a smudge on; soil by smudging.  Synonyms: blur, smudge, smutch.
3.
Cover (a surface) by smearing (a substance) over it.  Synonym: daub.  "Daub the ceiling with plaster"
4.
Charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone.  Synonyms: asperse, besmirch, calumniate, defame, denigrate, slander, smirch, sully.  "The article in the paper sullied my reputation"



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"Smear" Quotes from Famous Books



... the trees, the low red roof of a house detached itself. By this time the sun was sinking in a smear of red across a delicately tinted sky. Its dying rays held some glittering object high up on the side ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... wild unrest. The cool, salt flavor of the air spoke of wild stretches of the North Atlantic where sea-fogs have touched the eerie loneliness of Greenland bergs and passed it on to the wind. In this ghostly dusk of driving mist the smear of the rain across the face is like a touch of phantom hands coming out of unfathomed spaces, gentle but uncanny. All the soft perfumes of wood and field seem beaten to the ground by this rain which brings with its salt tang faint breathings ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... flowers surrounds the head, which is usually adorned by a large daub of arnatto on the hair above the brow; while the forehead and cheeks are painted in various patterns with the same vermilion colour, which adds extreme ferocity to their appearance. Some of the men also smear their bodies with arnatto, as do the women. They are generally well-proportioned, and more elegant in figure than the other races. The women are noted for weaving excellent and durable hammocks of cotton—a plant which ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... Pass'd on, and to the summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs. Marvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place. In the Venetian arsenal as boils Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear Their unbound vessels ... So not by force of fire but art divine Boiled here a glutinous thick mass, that round Limed ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... Cattermole breakfast he waited long. She did not come. Another day—but why paint another day that was but a smear of flat dull slate? Yet another breakfast, and the lady of mystery came. Before he knew he was doing it he had bowed to her, a slight uneasy bend of his neck. She peered at him, unseeing, and sat down with her ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... these it may be sufficient to answer, that the antient Grecians oiled themselves all over; that some nations have painted themselves all over, as the Picts of this island; that the Hottentots smear themselves all over with grease. And lastly, that many of our own heads at this day are covered with the flour of wheat and the fat of hogs, according to the tyranny of a filthy and wasteful fashion, and all this ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... verses were written. Among the Jews of Galicia, before a babe is placed in the cradle for the first time, it is customary to strew into the latter little pieces of honey-comb. Among the Wotjaks we find the curious belief that those who, in eating honey, do not smear their mouth and hands with it, will die. With children of an older growth,—the second Golden Age,—honey and cakes again appear. Magyar maidens at the new moon steal honey and cakes, cook them, and mix a part in the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... the earlier part of the sixteenth century, heard much of a fabled king whom they called El Dorado. [27] This king, it was said, used to smear himself with gold dust at an annual religious ceremony. In time the idea arose that somewhere in South America existed a fabled country marvelously rich in precious metals and gems. These stories stirred the imagination of the Spaniards, who fitted ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... to protect themselves against ultra-violet radiation, they smear themselves with red paint—presumably because red will ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... soot," said Sobieska musingly. "I remember now that, while the rest of his face looked remarkably like a freshly scrubbed one, there was a long dark smear along one of Josef's eyebrows as we brought you into the house; but that is not enough to convict him of the treason, however strong a suspicion it arouses. Well, things are looking a trifle as if Vladimar not only knows ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... he came I struck him twice, with left and right, and he staggered backwards to the wall. He stood for a moment, with his head stooped upon his hands. When he looked up his face was dead white, and with a smear of blood upon it that seemed to accentuate its pallor; but his voice came ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... a sitting position, stared around, clapped a hand to his right shoulder, looked at the red smear his palm brought away, reeled up, and scrambled back to his rifle. Schwandorf's bullet had drilled clear through the shoulder, and in falling his head had struck one of the upright poles. Without a word ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... to make a likeness of his wife or child as the case may be. Even more necessary are the services of an architect when building or remodeling a house. Trying to be your own architect is as foolish as drawing a sketch of little Jerry on canvas and then calling in a house painter to smear on a daub of blue for his coat, a bit of yellow for his hair, white for his collar, and just anything for the background. At worst, though, this futuristic result can be taken to the attic, turned face to the wall and forgotten; but a botched house won't let you forget. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... development. Seeing Dr. Bandinel near, I asked him to look at my curiosity. Hardly, however, had I turned the wriggling little victim out upon the leather-covered table, when down came the doctor's great thumb-nail upon him, and an inch-long smear proved the tomb of all my hopes, while the great bibliographer, wiping his thumb on his coat sleeve, passed on with the remark, "Oh, yes! they have black heads sometimes." That was something to know—another fact for the entomologist; ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades

... to suggest a park below. Put the breakfast table on a dais. Let the colors be kind of arty and tea-roomy—orange chairs, and orange and blue table, and blue Japanese breakfast set, and some place, one big flat smear of black—bang! Oh. Another play I wish we could do is Tennyson Jesse's 'The Black Mask.' I've never seen it but——Glorious ending, where this woman looks at the man with his face all blown away, and she ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... when sweat Unpurged cleaves to them after shearing done, And rough thorns rend their bodies. Hence it is Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams, While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell, The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide. Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum And native sulphur and Idaean pitch, Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black. Yet ne'er ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... stood up, hitched his dungarees, spat blood on the deck, and stood waving from side to side like a dancing bear. His face was unrecognizable; his dungarees, so neat and clean when he donned them the night before, were now one vast smear of red, and he grinned horribly, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... his hand, to hold it out, for a tiny smear of moisture to be seen glistening in the sun upon the ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... very clear of vision as to the affection tendered us, so long as we remain unmoved, but once our feelings are stirred, their palpitating fears so smear our ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... stalking, or watching at night in rainy weather, wax or grease the edge of the cap as it rests on the nipple: it will thus become proof against water and damp air. Some persons carry a piece of grease with them, when shooting in wet weather, and with it they smear the top of the nipple after each loading, before putting on the fresh cap. It is said that the grease does not prevent the full action of the cap upon the powder. A sportsman has recommended to me a couple of well-marked ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... and a peculiar power of springing and hurling itself upon its prey. The Patagonians are a barbarous people in the main and, like all barbarous people, are vengeful, cunning, and subtle. A favourite revenge of theirs upon unsuspecting enemies is to get within touch of them and secretly to smear a mixture of coriander and oil of sassafras upon some part of their bodies, and then either to lure or drive them into the forest. By a peculiar arrangement of Mother Nature this mixture has a fascination, a maddening effect upon the Mynga Worm, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... after our cold drive in the snow. The moonlight was marvellous, and the mountain passes were beyond words picturesque. We passed a string of 150 camels pacing along in the moonlight and the snow. All of them wore bells which jingled softly. Around us were the weird white hills, with a smear of mist over them. The radiant moon, the snow, and the chiming camels ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... their hair that at a little distance they appeared to have on red caps. It is curious that the taste for red hair should be so general among the Africans here and further north; in the south black mica, called Sebilo, and even soot are used to deepen the colour of the hair; here many smear the head with red-ochre, others plait the inner bark of a tree stained red into it; and a red powder called Mukuru is employed, which some say is obtained from the ground, and others from ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... solution of the whole mystery. The chair was a cheap one, made of white wood, and had the usual smooth strip of wood at the top. On the back of this piece of wood, a quarter of an inch or so from the bottom, on the left-hand side, was a faint smear of blood. The presence of the blood set me thinking. When found, the chair had been exactly eighteen inches from the body. The mere fact that the man had been stabbed from behind and to the heart, precluded any possibility of his having jumped up and caught at the back ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby

... have been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print and smear ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... eyes. Then he deliberately stood up on the pine root, with his back to the tree, and put his mark away up, a head at least above that of Wahb. He rubbed his back long and hard, and he sought some mud to smear his head and shoulders, then came back and made the mark so big, so strong, and so high, and emphasized it with such claw-gashes in the bark, that it could be read only in one way—a challenge to the present claimant from some monstrous invader, ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton

... sorcerer in Finland, who hopes that you will not think ill of him that he did not reply to your message sooner, for he could not find a messenger who was coming this way. It is a very simple matter to disenchant the maiden. You have only to go to the bank of the river, throw off your clothes, and smear yourself all over with mud till not a speck remains white. Then take the tip of your nose between your fingers, and say, 'Let the man become a crayfish.' Immediately you will become a crayfish, when you can descend into the river without any fear ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... Euclid [here Lamb has ruled lines grossly unparallel]. Her very blots are not bold like this [here a bold blot], but poor smears [here a poor smear] half left in and half scratched out with another smear left in their place. I like a clean letter. A bold free hand, and a fearless flourish. Then she has always to go thro' them (a second operation) to dot her i s, and cross her t s. I don't think she can make a cork screw, if she tried—which has such a fine effect ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... if he will this time, thought the Collector grimly, with a glance down at a smear across the knuckle of his right-hand glove. The sight of it cheered him and steadied his temper. "Possibly," said he aloud. "But your worships may not be aware—and as merciful men may be glad to hear—that this poor creature's ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... destroy the loveliness, making prose of the poem? The Galbraiths, Snelling, the greed for money, Janoah's jealousy and evil suspicions—ah, it did not take long for such influences to mar the peace of a heaven and smear the grime of earth upon its fairness! Only glimpses of perfection were granted the dwellers of this planet,—quick, transient flashes that mirrored a future free from finite limitations. He who expected to remain on the heights in this world ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... when he unlocked the safe, he perceived with astonishment and dismay that the parcel of diamonds had vanished. The slip of paper, however, lay at the bottom of the safe, and on picking it up Mr. Hornby perceived that it bore a smear of blood, and in addition, the distinct impression of a human thumb. On this he closed and locked the safe and sent a note to the police station, in response to which a very intelligent officer—Inspector Sanderson—came and made a preliminary examination. I need ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... lead the world, she will never do so. Our hearts must break. But she will... she will! No one who is watching events can doubt it. Only cynics like Alexei doubt—he doubts everything. And he cannot leave anything alone. He must smear everything with his dirty finger. But he must leave ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... been an invention. As to the waistcoat which had figured so conspicuously in all the rumors, it appeared that suspicion had monstrously exaggerated the facts. Instead of a waistcoat plashed with blood—as popular imagination pictured it—it was a gray waistcoat, with one spot and a slight smear of blood, which admitted of a very simple explanation. Three days before, Franz had cut his left hand in cutting some bread; and to this the maid testified, because she was present when the accident ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... attributed all sorts of base motives to him. He was often sorely provoked, but he acted upon the advice of that holy man who tells us that, when people throw mud at us, our wisdom is to leave it to dry, when it will fall off of itself, and not to smear our clothes by trying of ourselves to wipe it off. He had hearty helpers in Ned Brierley and his family; Ned himself being a special support, for the persecutors were all afraid of him. But his chief ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... time he sat there in the dark, the moon through the skylight above laying a pale smear which lengthened slowly towards him down the stairway. He tried ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... smear their arrows with something that will burn easily. One of them draws his bow. Just as he is about to let his arrow fly, another one touches it with fire. The arrow blazes as it shoots through the air, like a fiery dragon fly. One burning arrow follows another; and those who see ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... for the moment, to think of anything else. He was particularly anxious that the little beast should settle down in the house and become thoroughly domesticated, and with that object in view he at once proceeded to liberally smear its fore paws with part of our slender remaining stock of butter, having heard that cats so treated never deserted the house in which they had received such hospitality. Next, he set to work to make a kennel out of odds ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... cut and his blood was on the floor, and he was dead. They led us into the shell of the place, the stone walls being still staunchly erect; but the roof was gone, and in the cinders and dust on the planks of an inner room they showed us a big dull-brown smear. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... Scotland Yard, but in China it is a very ancient practice. I have seen illiterate men smear their thumbs with ink and make impressions at the foot of documents, such thumb-marks being accepted as in every ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... Carpet—Do not attempt to sweep the carpet until it has been covered with dry salt. Then sweep it and no smear ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler

... led to expect trouble from it. The weapon was always cleaned with water so boiling hot that the heat of the barrel dried it. When occasionally flakes of metal fouling became visible a Marble brush always sufficed to remove enough of it. It was my habit to smear the bullets with mobilubricant before placing them in the magazine. This was not as much of a nuisance as it sounds. A small tin box about the size of a pill box lasted me the whole trip; and only once did I completely empty the magazine at one time. On my return I tested the rifle very thoroughly ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... shawl with a steady hand. There was an old white straw bonnet flattened down over the forehead; a wisp of blue ribbon string was blown across the face and over the red smear between the eyebrow and the hair; the eyes stared wide and glassy. But it was the same soft brown hair. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... seemed that a great hand swept carelessly across the blackness of the farther sky, and smeared it with stars and suns and shining nebulas as a brush might smear dry ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... other houses worked an' slaved for, when The boy was but a youngster at my side, Some bonds we took the time he went to war; I've spent my strength against the want of age— We've always had some end to struggle for. Now shame an' ruin smear the final page. ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest

... green, violet, and purple radiate from the posterior and converge at the mouth, the hues blending rainbow-like. The brighter colours seem to have been carelessly and profusely applied, for they run when touched and smear the fingers. Among a family generally sad-hued and shrinking so conspicuous an example is quite prodigal and invites one to ponder upon the sportfulness of Nature. What special office in her processes does this fop of the species with ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... British flora; but the Saffron Crocus can in no way be considered a native, and the history of its introduction into England is very obscure. It is mentioned several times in the Anglo-Saxon Leech Books: "When he bathes, let him smear himself with oil; mingle it with Saffron."—Tenth Century Leech Book, ii. 37. "For dimness of eyes, thus one must heal it: take Celandine one spoonful, and Aloes, and Crocus (Saffron in French)."—Schools of Medicine, tenth century, c. 22. In ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... fluttering in the morning breeze that came sharp and refreshing off the face of the water, a handkerchief. And there was two sorts o' stains on it—caused in the one case by mud—the soft mud of the adjacent beach—and in the other by blood. A smear of blood—as if somebody had wiped blood off his fingers, you'll understand. But it was not that, not the blood, made me give my particular attention to the thing, which I'd picked off with my thumb and finger. It was that I saw at once that ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... horror of deformity. And the burden, lying upon a sweeping cedar branch which he held and dragged by a long stem, was the body of a white man. The scalp had been neatly lifted, and blood lay in a broad smear upon the ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... came home from school, dinner was eaten, the Man took the Frau's share of pudding as well as his own, and the three children seemed to smear themselves all over with whatever they ate. Then more dish-washing and more cleaning and baby-minding. So ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield

... with a saber, would enjoy it just as well to be run through with a common saber. My only object was to help put down the rebellion, and I could do it with ordinary plain cutlery, as well as silver-mounted trappings. I said that to smear a silver-mounted saber all over with gore, would spoil the looks of it. The chaplain went out, when a drummer for a tailor shop came in with some samples, and wanted to make up a new uniform for me, regardless of expense. I stood him off, and went to bed, tired, and thought I had rather be a ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... altar-piece. These two Saints are fine, stately figures, painted with broad sweeping lines. The green robe of S. Anastasio was originally covered with a gorgeous pattern, probably of yellow or gold, but this has been effaced by the thick smear of repaint. The gentle humility in the face of the Virgin recalls the "Madonna," of the Brera Gallery, Milan (No. 197 bis) with which the picture has, besides, much in common, the Child, as well as the hands of the Virgin, being exactly the same, although ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... covered with cocoa mats, are seen the yellowish-brown Polynesians, of powerful build and proud bearing. The upper parts of their bodies are bare, and they wear necklaces of shells and teeth, deck themselves with flowers and feathers, smear their bodies with cocoa oil, and tattoo themselves. Of a peaceful and happy disposition, they, too, have been disturbed by white men, and have been forced to cede their islands to Germany and the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... some sort of dirty cud ... Eh!" she suddenly made a gesture of despair. 'Let's better drink some cognac, Jennechka,'" she addressed herself, "'and let's suck the lemon a little! ...' Brr ... what nasty stuff! ... And where does Annushka always get such abominable stuff? If you smear a dog's wool with it, it will fall off ... And always, the low-down thing, she'll take an extra half. Once I somehow ask her—'What are you hoarding money for?' 'Well, I,' she says, 'am saving it up for a wedding. What sort,' she says, 'of joy will ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... clay-bespattered fingers on his dingy Jean pants, and gripped the offered hand, appearing homelier than ever because of a smear of blood ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... made. She felt that she must escape. And yet how could she escape? She had definitely pledged herself to this man. ("Ah!" cried Geoffrey gaily, as the pats of butter arrived. "That's more like it!" He began to smear the toast. Maud averted her eyes.) She had told him that she loved him, that he was the whole world to her, that there never would be anyone else. He had come to claim her. How could she refuse him just because he was ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... paste of fresh lime and water, and with a fine brush smear it as thickly as possible over all the polished surface requiring preservation. By this simple means, all the grates and fire-irons in an empty house may be kept for months free from harm, without further ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... the officer had to do his duty. The others scuttled away, but Jimmy was so absorbed in the game that he didn't see the "cop" until he was right on him, so he was "pinched." He blubbered a little and wiped his grimy face with his grimier sleeve until it was one long, brown smear. You know this was Jimmy's ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... paid when Matt presented it the next morning. As he came out of the bank a newsboy, crying his daily sensation, accosted him with the first afternoon edition, and Matt's glance caught a smear of red ink seven columns wide ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... a smear, that's all. I felt about as thick through as a Saratoga chip, and not half so crisp. Encouragin' finish for an afternoon call that I'd been bracin' myself up to for weeks, wa'n't it? And from all I can gather from a couple of sketchy notes Vee ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... dry; select a clean patch of cloth and smear it well with sperm or warmed cosmic oil, being sure that the cosmic has soaked into the patch well; scrub the bore with patch, finally drawing the patch smoothly from the muzzle to the breech, allowing the cleaning rod to turn ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... thing to bathe in; the bridge binoculars diligently swept the sharp blue line of horizon. Presently the Third Officer put his glass down. "There she is," said he, "two points on the starboard bow." We all looked, and we saw the tiny smear of smoke on the line. How strange it was; both of us coming up from nowhere and meeting on this roadless waste! In a quarter of an hour we raised her masts and funnel, and then we perceived it was not ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... latter, viz. the proportions and arrangement of the larger parts and the general masses of light and shade, and leave all the minuter parts of which those parts are composed a mere blotch, one general smear, like the first crude and hasty getting in of the groundwork of a picture: he may do either of these, or he may combine both, that is, finish the parts, but put them in their right places, and keep them ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... to an appointed place, where the favourite wife throws a ball from her hand, and where it stops marks the place of their deaths. Being come there, and turning their faces to the east, they all draw their daggers and stab themselves to the heart; after which they smear themselves with their own blood, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... Nymphs abhor, 90 The blood-smear'd mansion of gigantic THOR,— —Erst, fires volcanic in the marble womb Of cloud-wrapp'd WETTON raised the massy dome; Rocks rear'd on rocks in huge disjointed piles Form the tall turrets, and ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... and fell to the metal floor. He noticed that a smear of her freshly-applied lipstick ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson

... intention and design, none but worms can be familiar with. A hundred and ten years have passed, since any play was acted here. The sky shines in through the gashes in the roof; the boxes are dropping down, wasting away, and only tenanted by rats; damp and mildew smear the faded colours, and make spectral maps upon the panels; lean rags are dangling down where there were gay festoons on the Proscenium; the stage has rotted so, that a narrow wooden gallery is thrown across it, or it would sink beneath the tread, and bury the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... bent and broken blades of the coarse grass, and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... supposing it to be a pole, performed some imitations. But, unable long to preserve it upright from its weight, the sooty end fell on Master Snapper's book, who was reading a little work upon "Affability." The blow fairly knocked it out of his hand, and made a great smear on his frilled shirt, at which a loud laugh ensued. Now Master Snapper could not bear to be laughed at, and was so much out of humor all the evening that ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... down the neat mission house, and they had pounded and ground the bright red bricks into the finest powder, which mixed with grease formed a paint to smear their naked bodies. Thus the only results of many years' teaching were the death of many noble men, the loss of money, the failure of the attempt; and instead of the enterprise leaving a legacy of inward spiritual grace ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... to throw away his now ragged garments, smear his whole body over with oil and red earth, paint black spots on his cheeks, and a white streak down his nose, and put on warrior's costume. In vain Jarwin begged and protested and sang. The Big Chief's blood was up, and his commands must be obeyed, therefore Jarwin did ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne

... bridges the navvies used to come in the evenings in a gang, simply in order to beat the painters— it was a form of sport to them. They used to beat us, to steal our brushes. And to annoy us and rouse us to fight they used to spoil our work; they would, for instance, smear over the signal boxes with green paint. To complete our troubles, Radish took to paying us very irregularly. All the painting work on the line was given out to a contractor; he gave it out to another; and this subcontractor gave it to Radish after subtracting twenty per ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... at the characterization, but confessed that he would be appreciative of any information. In three days a galley proof of the paragraph was in his hands. It confirmed his angriest fears. Publication of it would smear Io's name with scandal, and, by consequence, direct the leering gaze of the world ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... trench, I walk 'mid shambles' smear and stench, The dead I mourn; I bear the stretcher and I bend O'er Fritz and Pierre and Jack to mend What ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... she cared to tell before the big brothers, for she had spent one whole happy afternoon in the canyon with the colonel's son, watching him as he scrambled up the south bank, with the agility and sure-footedness of a goat, and hung for an hour in mid-air by one hand. So, while she ate her bread and smear-case, she made up her mind to follow the professor after the meal was over ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... laughed the father, Joi. But the aunt said, "Toity!" and, "Drat the boy!" "He shall play," said the father, "some noble part. Who knows but it may be in letters or art? 'Tis a dignified business to make folk think." But the aunt cried, "What! Go messing with ink? And smear all his fingers, and take to drink? Paint hussies and cows, and end ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... the bed with the rubbers in my mouth is difficult, but it doesn't make any difference if some of the mud comes off on the side of the bedspread. In fact, it all helps in the final effect. I usually try to smear them around when I get them at last on the spread, and if I can leave one of them on the pillow, I feel that it's a pretty fine little old world, after all. This done, and I ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... like Juli's, cut straight in a fringe across her forehead, and she was dressed in a smock of dyed red fur that almost matched her hair. A little smear of milk like a white moustache clung to her upper lip where she had forgotten to wipe her mouth. She was about five years old, with deep-set dark eyes like Juli's, that watched me gravely without surprise or fear; she evidently knew who ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... his nose and a smear on his cheek And knees that might not have been washed in a week; A bump on his forehead, a scar on his lip, A relic of many a tumble and trip: A rough little, tough little rascal, but sweet, Is he that each evening I'm ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... a song which was said to be composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids, with whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... good', as she called it. But the figures had the old obstinate propensity—they WOULD NOT add up. When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out. Her own little right-hand middle finger got steeped to the very bone in ink; and I think that was the only ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Hiawatha, Take your arrows, jasper-headed, Take your war-club, Puggawaugun, And your mittens, Minjekahwun, And your birch-canoe for sailing, And the oil of Mishe-Nahma, So to smear its sides, that swiftly You may pass the black pitch-water; Slay this merciless magician, Save the people from the fever That he breathes across the fen-lands, And avenge ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... For one thing, he isn't like the usual firebug at all. Ordinarily they start their fires with excelsior and petroleum, or they smear the wood with paraffin or they use gasoline, benzine, or something of that sort. This fellow apparently scorns such crude methods. I can't say how he starts his fires, but in every case I have mentioned we have found the remains of a wire. It has something to do with electricity - but what, ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... and water, Over the sea perhaps!—I have heard tell That 'tis some thousand miles, almost at the end Of the world, where witches go to meet the Devil. They used to ride on broomsticks, and to smear Some ointment over them and then away Out of the window! but 'tis worse than all To worry the poor beasts so. Shame upon it That in a Christian country they should ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... sent it in a letter to the Editor, Who thanked me duly by return of post— I'm for a handsome article his creditor; Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to roast, And break a promise after having made it her, Denying the receipt of what it cost, And smear his page with gall instead of honey, All I can say is—that he had ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... the tsetse shows to animal excreta, as exhibited when a village is placed in its habitat, has been observed and turned to account by some of the doctors. They mix droppings of animals, human milk, and some medicines together, and smear the animals that are about to pass through a tsetse district; but this, though it proves a preventive at the time, is not permanent. There is no cure yet known for the disease. A careless herdsman allowing a large number ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... dope it out this way. If, as you say, there is a caretaker or an agent, it would be only natural for him to repair the broken door; but why take all the trouble to smear it with dirt and dent it a little to make it appear that it hadn't been touched? You can see that there are different woods used in the door, and the repaired part is of much newer timber. I tell you, there is some reason for this secrecy. ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... brings up the rear of the procession. While these sacred objects are being handed out of the house, the men who are present rush up, wipe off the hallowed dust which has accumulated on them, and smear it over their own bodies, no doubt in order to steep themselves in their blessed influence. Thus the tree is carried as before to the centre of the temporary village, care being again taken not to let it touch the ground. Then one of the fasting men takes from ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... was incased in the uniform of a laborer. Spick and span and new it was, and gave him a singularly uncomfortable feeling because of this fact. He wanted it grimed and daubed like the overalls of the men he saw about him. A boyish impulse to smear it moved him—but he was ashamed ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... are privileged to come in at practice and do all the damage they can, but who have to keep mighty quiet on the march. They can carry their horns, puff out their cheeks and look as grand as they please, but if they'd presume to cut loose with some real notes and smear up a piece, they'd be ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch

... said that wasps and bees will not sting a person whose skin is covered with honey. And so those who are exposed to the sting of these venomous little creatures smear their hands and faces over with honey, and this, we are told, proves the best shield they can have to keep them from getting stung. And the honey here very well represents the kindness which Jesus teaches ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... to follow our drive, some of these brave boys were to pay the price with their lives. On September 11th, the boys were drilled for the last time. We were then required to strip our bodies of all our clothes and to smear ourselves with a salve. This was a preparation that was designed to protect the body from burns in case we encountered the ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood

... was that Soada was left to fight her battle alone. She did not weep or wail when Wassef's body was brought home and the moghassil and hanouti came to do their offices. She did not smear her hair with mud, nor was she moved by the wailing of the mourning women nor the chanters of the Koran. She only said to Fatima when all was over: "It is well; he is gone from my woe to the mercy of God! Praise be to God!" And she held her head high in the village still, though ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... verandah, peering through the mist toward a distant splash of light across the ravine to the right of the club grounds. The fog and mist combined to run the many lights of the Thursdale windows into a single smear of colour a few shades brighter than the darkness from which it protruded. Dauntless's heart was inside that vague, impressionistic circle of colour, but his brain was very much in evidence on the distant outside. What were the workings of that eager ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon

... that has not soaked in. You will see that the "sooner" is the "better" in this case. Try not to increase the size of the spot, for you must keep the ink from spreading. Then dip fresh cotton in milk, and carefully sop the spot. Do not use the cotton when it is inky; that will smear the carpet and spread the stain. Use fresh bits of cotton, dipped in clean milk, until the stain has disappeared. Then rinse with clean water in the same way, and dry with ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... Vrow Katerina arrived, and stepping on board of her by the plank which communicated with the quay, the first thing that he did was to run to the mainmast and embrace it with both arms, although there was no small portion of tallow on it to smear the cloth of his coat. "Oh! my dear Vrow, my Katerina!" cried he, as if he were speaking to a female. "How do you do? I'm glad to see you again—you have been quite well, I hope? You do not like being laid ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... that are perpetually threatening to meet,—which, you know, is quite contrary to Euclid. Her very blots are not bold, like this [here a large blot is inserted], but poor smears, half left in and half scratched out, with another smear left in their place. I like a clear letter; a bold, free hand and a fearless flourish. Then she has always to go through them (a second operation) to dot her i's and cross her t's. I don't think she could make a corkscrew if she tried,—which has such a fine effect at the end ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... neither. Don' lak butter put in nuthin I eats. I laks me squash fried down brown lak wid grease in de pan. I laks me beets wid uh little vinegay on em en season wid some sugar sprinkle on em. Don' lak em jes wid nuthin but uh little salt en butter smear aw o'er dem lak some uv dese peoples 'bout ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... and contempt. I thought this curious—but I attributed it mainly to some clumsiness on the Superintendent's part which might have offended the young lady. After that, I put it by in my mind, and applied myself, single-handed, to the case. It ended, as you are aware, in the discovery of the smear on the door, and in Mr. Franklin Blake's evidence satisfying me, that this same smear, and the loss of the Diamond, were pieces of the same puzzle. So far, if I suspected anything, I suspected that the Moonstone had been stolen, and that one of the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... "Fraulein Timea, you need not regret this coiffure. It would suit you much better if you wore your hair quite plain; you have such lovely hair, that it is a sin to burn it with irons and smear it with pomade. Do not allow it; it is a shame to lose any of your magnificent hair, and it is soon ruined by the ill-treatment which ladies call hairdressing—it loses its brilliancy, splits at the points, breaks easily, and falls early. You do not require ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... black smear was on Baby Akbar's forehead, and despite the smudge, he looked a very fine little fellow indeed. So much so that quite a murmur of delighted admiration ran round the assemblage when Askurry appeared, leading him by the hand; for he had quickly learned to run about ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... testimony, the Jews are in the habit of using Christian blood to smear the eyes of their new-born babies, since "the Jews are always born blind," also to mix it with the flour in preparing the unleavened bread ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... Yeri beauties no longer shelter their skins from the burning rays of the sun, and are become as brown as the rest. All the graces have departed from them; their fascinating smiles have vanished; and the rancid cocoa-oil with which they smear themselves may be smelt at many paces distance. In short, either the picture drawn of them by the early travellers was a monstrous flattery, or they are altogether different from what they were. I saw but one handsome girl at Tahaiti; she was the sister of the little King, only fourteen ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... narrow inlet to their cells contrive; For colds congeal and freeze the liquors up, And, melted down with heat, the waxen buildings drop. The bees, of both extremes alike afraid, Their wax around the whistling crannies spread, And suck out clammy dews from herbs and flowers, To smear the chinks, and plaster up the pores; For this they hoard up glue, whose clinging drops, Like pitch or bird-lime, hang in stringy ropes. They oft, 'tis said, in dark retirements dwell, 50 And work ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... ornaments of barbarous pride. 120 There huge Colosses rose, with trophies crown'd, And Runic characters were graved around. There sat Zamolxis[63] with erected eyes, And Odin here in mimic trances dies. There on rude iron columns, smear'd with blood, The horrid forms of Seythian heroes stood, Druids and Bards (their once loud harps unstrung) And youths that died to be by poets sung. These, and a thousand more of doubtful fame, To whom old fables ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... into one more quiet and more gloomy than the rest, and, singling out a certain house, ascended a common staircase; taking from his pocket, as he went, a bunch of rusty keys. Stopping before a door upon an upper story, which had nothing but a yellow smear of paint where custom would have placed the tenant's name, he began to beat the dust out of one of these keys, very deliberately, upon the great ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... and they were always the creatures of public opinion. They wrote for the masses. Their columns were filled with their own peculiar brand of propaganda, illusions, dreams, assertions, prejudices, sensations, with always a cheap smear of moral platitude. Our people had grown too busy to do their own thinking. The daily newspapers now did it for them. There was as little originality in them as in the machines which printed the editions. Yet they were repeated by ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... boy of ten or twelve years whose job it was to take care of the dogs and to remove ticks. In fact he was known as the Tick Toto. As this was his first expedition afield, his father took especial pains to smear him with fat from the lioness. This was to make him brave. I am bound to confess the effect was ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... Now you have begun on my punctuation. Don't you realize that you ought not to intrude your help in a delicate art like that with your limitations? And do you think that you have added just the right smear of polish to the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... he had limped away, and Mrs. Kinnaird found the girl looking down with a very curious expression at a little smear of blood on a smooth white stone. There were further red spots on the shingle, and they led forward in the direction in which the ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... all!' Thor gazed at Hicks questioningly—I forgot to add that insect's name—and asked, 'Is it so, Hicks? I got to play for the college?' And when Hicks grinned, 'Sure, Thor, it must be did. Bannister expects you to smear the other teams over the landscape,' that blond Norwegian Viking said, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... mentioned appear in such places, the following test should be applied. Dig out a place not less than three feet square and five feet deep, and put into it about sunset a bronze or leaden bowl or basin, whichever is at hand. Smear the inside with oil, lay it upside down, and cover the top of the excavation with reeds or green boughs, throwing earth upon them. Next day uncover it, and if there are drops and drippings in the vessel, ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... a fiery steed the stripling rose, Form'd the light files to pierce the line of foes; Then waved his gleamy sword that flash'd the day, And thro the Gallic legions hew'd his way: His troops press forward like a loose-broke flood, Sweep ranks away and smear their paths in blood; The hovering foes pursue the combat far, And shower their balls along the flying war; When the new leader turns his single force, Points the flight forward, speeds his backward course; The French recoiling ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... suppose that feller died awful slow, and went on hollering and clutching at the bags? And they couldn't of got that rock off'n him without a block and tackle, or done much to make things easy for him if they had, him being jest a smear, as you may say. Well, that cave wouldn't be a pleasant place to stay in, would it? And no one would have the nerve to snatch them bags away to bury 'em, 'cause a dying man, especially when he dies hard, can have an awful grip. ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... Puentener, a mercenary whose valor made him the terror of the enemy in the battle of Marignano, in 1515; so that when he was finally killed, they avenged themselves, according to a writing beneath the picture, by using his fat to smear their weapons, and by feeding their horses with oats from his carcass. Just outside the village stands the arsenal, whence, they say, old armor was taken and turned into shovels, when the St. Gothard Railroad was building, so poor and ignorant ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... as an old friend with Barnaby's mother. He knew the Maypole story of the widow Rudge—how her husband, employed at Chigwell, and his master had been murdered; and how her son, born upon the very day the deed was known, bore upon his wrist a smear of blood ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... upon the walls. Louis Bonaparte was one of the candidates. His name appeared on these open-air bulletins, as they may be termed, in company with the names of Raspail and Barbes. The day after the execution Louis Napoleon's name wherever it was to be seen had a red smear across it. A silent protest, a reproach and a menace. The finger of the people pending the finger ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... lost sight of them for several rods, but she always picked them up farther along. At one place she stopped, and stood perfectly still, her skirts held back tightly with both hands, while she stared fascinatedly at a red smear upon a broken branch of sage and the smooth-packed hollow in the sand where he must ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... made by taking a smear from the most vicious part of the wound at intervals of two or three days. The number of bacteria on these smears is noted and counted per oil immersion field. A count of more than 75 bacteria per field is considered infinity. When there are less than 10 bacilli to the field, and not less than ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... throat as we could. Poor pussy—she died in a few seconds. Do you know, I was reading such a funny thing the other day about giving cats medicine. They hate it, and one can scarcely force it into their mouths on account of their sharp teeth. The way is, to smear it on their sides, and they lick it off. A good idea, isn't it? Here we are at the hen house, or rather ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... anything. I'll make my chemical analyses and microscopic examinations without knowing the identity in the case either of the blood samples or the finger-nail files. If I obtain results by both methods, and they agree, I'll return armed with double-barreled evidence. Meanwhile, Mackay, you get a smear from Miss Loring and follow us to the laboratory. I'll coax McGroarty to drive us down, so you'll have your car and you ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... sitting down again, Helen, only because I am not able to stand," he said. "I WILL go. Don't talk to me about doing good! Whatever I touched I should but smear with blood. I want the responsibility of my own life taken off me. I am like the horrible creature Frankenstein made—one that has no right to existence—and at the same time like the maker of it, who is accountable for ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... his way to England on the Tyrian, one of the old ten-gun brigs which carried the mails, slow and uncomfortable at the best, unseaworthy death-traps in a storm. As she lay rolling in a flat calm with flapping sails, a few hundred miles from England, a smear appeared on the western horizon. The smear grew to a smudge, the smudge to a shape, and soon there steamed up alongside the Sirius, a steamer which had successfully crossed the Atlantic, and was now on her return to England. ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... profiteer With unabat- Ed loathing; Though I detest The price they smear On pants ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams

... grizzled rustic sat in the far corner; his empty pipe, bowl downwards, jutted like a handle from his face, all bleared with the smear of nothingness that grows on those who pass their lives in the current of hard facts. Next to him, a ruddy, heavy-shouldered man was discussing with a grey-haired, hatchet-visaged person the condition of their gardens; and Shelton watched their eyes till it occurred to him how curious a look ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... breeches and cased in great leathern sea-boots pulled up to his knees, stood planted wide apart as though to brace against the slant of the deck. The face our hero beheld to be as white as dough, with fishy eyes and a bony forehead, on the side of which was a great smear as of blood. ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... and around their necks and bodies, wherewith after their manner they appear very fine. They have long deer's hair which is dyed red, and of which they make rings for the head, and other fine hair of the same color, to hang from the neck like tresses, of which they are very proud. They frequently smear their skin and hair with difference kinds of grease. They can almost all swim. They themselves make the boats they use, which are of two kinds, some of entire trees, which they hollow out with fire, hatchets and adzes, and which the Christians call canoes; others are made of bark, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor



Words linked to "Smear" :   splodge, defamation, rub, badmouth, fingermark, dirty, blood, libel, smear word, resmudge, colly, cover, bemire, mar, smirch, charge, assassinate, inkblot, moil, fault, error, paraduodenal smear, traduce, calumniation, splotch, drag through the mud, cytologic specimen, obloquy, defect, fingerprint, blemish, blotch, accuse, slander, malign, dust, defame, smear test, begrime, grime, calumny, mistake, hatchet job, soil, blur, traducement



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