blot on the escutcheon

plural blots on the escutcheon · plural blots on escutcheons · alternative blotch on the escutcheon

1. idiomaticSomething damaging to one's reputation.

   The most zealous advocates of the unfortunate monarch cannot deny that this is an indelible blot on his escutcheon.

   1819, Mathew Carey, chapter 6, in Vindiciæ Hibernicæ: or, Ireland Vindicated, Philadelphia: self-published, page 164

   2 more examples

   He had been commissioned by Chapman & Hall to write another Christmas book—The Kickleburys on the Rhine—had received an advance payment, and with it had removed the last blot from his stepfather’s escutcheon by paying off the last instalment of his debt.

   1971, G. U. Ellis, chapter 6, in Thackeray, New York: Haskell House, page 95

   Consequently, where the pardon became a convenient punching bag among contending Democrats, it was no blot on Ford’s escutcheon in the primary contest between Ford and Reagan.

   1984, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, chapter 8, in Packaging the Presidency, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, published 1996