The story
- Yiddish · borrowed fromשמיר“smear, spread”
- English todayschmear
Borrowed from Yiddish שמיר (shmir, “smear, spread”); compare German schmieren. Doublet of smear, smearcase. By surface analysis, schm- + smear. The sense “bribe” is from Yiddish שמירן (shmirn, “to smear, to bribe”), senses found also in German schmieren. The implication is that a bribe helps “lubricate” an interaction.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.