besmirch

present singular third person besmirches · participle present besmirching · participle past besmirched · past besmirched

1. literarytransitiveTo make dirty.

   Synonyms: soil, sully, tarnish, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood)

2. transitiveTo tarnish something, especially someone's reputation.

   The newspaper was on a campaign to besmirch the actor.

   3 more examples

   Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd With rainy marching in the painful field

   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, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   "It may be," he replied, "because I will not encounter the dishonor that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman.[…]"

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

   Sir Guy might still have slain him without besmirching his knightly honor

   1928, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle

   Synonyms: blacken, debase, libel, smear, slander, assassinate, asperse, backbite · Antonyms: unbesmirch