smack

plural smacks

1. countableuncountableA distinct flavor, especially if slight.

   rice pudding with a smack of cinnamon

   2 more examples

   I did not call him fool, and vex my friend, / But quietly allowed experiment, / Encouraged him to dust his drink, and now / Grate lignum vitæ now bruise so-called grains / Of Paradise, and now, for perfume, pour / Distilment rare, the rose of Jericho, / Holy-thorn, passion-flower, and what know I? / Till beverage obtained the fancied smack.

   1873 January 23, Robert Browning, “Part IV”, in Red Cotton Night-Cap Country: Or Turf and Towers, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 245

   But take it: if the smack is sour / The better for the embittered hour; […]

   1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “(please specify the poem number)”, in A Shropshire Lad, London: The Richards Press, →OCLC

2. countableuncountableA slight trace of something; a smattering.

   He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him too.

   1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC

   1 more example

   I like my cousins in Holland immensely, but I feel more sib to the Northerners. Your description of Lofoten is fine. I can see them. They must be enchanting in their way, cod's head and tails or no. There is a fine eau de Javelle smack about a Dutch canal, by the way, that takes[…]

   1906, Oliver Elton, Frederick York Powell: A Life and a Selection from His Letters and Occasional Writings, page 249

3. slanguncountableSynonym of heroin.

   Claude overdosed on smack in a Chicago flophouse three years later.

   2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 191

   Synonyms: heroin

4. Northern EnglandcountableuncountableA form of fried potato; a scallop.

present singular third person smacks · participle present smacking · participle past smacked · past smacked

1. transitiveTo get the flavor of.

   He soon smacked the taste of physic hidden in this sweetness.

   1827, Thomas Carlyle (translator), Johann August Musæus, "Melechsala" (1782-86); in German Romance I. 175

2. intransitiveTo have a particular taste; used with of.

   1820-25, Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf — our crug — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from.

3. intransitiveTo indicate or suggest something; used with of.

   Her reckless behavior smacks of pride.

   1 more example

   All sects, all ages, smack of this vice.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]

   Synonyms: reek

plural smacks

1. A small sailing vessel, commonly rigged as a sloop, used chiefly in the coasting and fishing trade and often called a fishing smack.

   But without Union reinforcement, as many men as could be packed into a mere fishing smack could take the fort, Meigs wrote to Washington.

   2009, Simon Schama, The American Future: A History

   1 more example

   He had sung when he was by himself in the old days and he had sung at night sometimes when he was alone steering on his watch in the smacks or in the turtle boats.

   1952 September 1, Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 39

2. collectiveA group of jellyfish.

   As we paddled we passed a smack of jellyfish

   2008, Sean Stanley, Etcetera and Otherwise, Tightrope Books, page 55

   2 more examples

   In November 2007, a 16-square-kilometer smack of jellyfish at a depth of 35 feet invaded the Northern Salmon Company, Northern Ireland's only salmon farm, killing more than 100,000 fish at a cost of more than $2 million.

   2017, Bruce E. Johansen, Climate Change: An Encyclopedia of Science, Society, and Solutions, Bloomsbury Publishing

   Smacks of jellyfish are like genderless gangs.

   2017, Heather Davis, editor, Desire Change: Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada, McGill-Queen's University Press, page 61

plural smacks

1. A sharp blow; a slap. See also: spank.
2. The sound of a loud kiss.

   he took the bride about the neck. And kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack.

   c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   1 more example

   Then he told them of the princess, how she came to him, and how much she had to kiss him to get the whistle, when nobody saw or heard it over in the wood - "I must get on with these lies if the vat is to be full," said Ashiepattle, - so he told them about the queen, how stingy she was with the money and how liberal she was with kisses, that one could hear the smacks all over the wood.

   1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 178

3. A quick, sharp noise, as of the lips when suddenly separated, or of a whip.

present singular third person smacks · participle present smacking · participle past smacked · past smacked

1. To slap or hit someone.
2. To make a smacking sound.

   A horse neighed, and a whip smacked, there was a whistle, and the sound of a cart wheel.

   1832, Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming

3. especially outside of North AmericaTo strike a child (usually on the buttocks) as a form of discipline. (normal U.S. and Canadian term spank)
4. To wetly separate the lips, making a noise, after tasting something or in expectation of a treat.

   But when, obedient to the mode / Of panegyric, courtly ode / The bard bestrides, his annual hack, / In vain I taste, and sip and smack, / I find no flavour of the Sack.

   1763, Robert Lloyd, “A Familiar Epistle”, in St. James Magazine

5. To kiss with a close compression of the lips, so as to make a sound when they separate.

1. not comparableAs if with a smack or slap; smartly; sharply.

   She fell smack on her face.

   2 more examples

   Right smack in the middle of getting ready to leave.

   After one early moment in their courtship, Franny expresses, "That night I could feel my beauty standing up inside me for the first time in my life." These heightened scenes of discovery are offered smack amidst moods of vicious aggression and unresolvable separation, keeping Unusual Company rich with subtle twists.

   1987 December 13, Elizaeth Pincus, “Gritty Love”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 22, page 9

plural Smacks

1. A surname from German.

1. computingAn Apache-based solution stack consisting of Spark, Mesos, Akka, Cassandra, and Kafka.