smirch

plural smirches · alternative smurch · alternative smerch

1. archaiccountableuncountableDirt, or a stain.

   Too often, in the years between 800 and 1050, the everyday sun declined through the smirch of flame and smoke of a monastery or town robbed and burnt.

   1998, Michael Foss, People of the First Crusade, →ISBN, page 6

2. archaiccountablefigurativelyuncountableA stain on somebody's reputation.

   there were some business transactions which savored of dangerous speculation, if not dishonesty; and around it all lay the smirch of the Freedmen's Bank.

   2008, W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, →ISBN, page 33

present singular third person smirches · participle present smirching · participle past smirched · past smirched · alternative smurch · alternative smerch

1. archaictransitiveTo dirty; to make dirty.

   Girls thought that by leaping over the fires without being smirched they made sure of a happy marriage.

   1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 10, page 108

   1 more example

   CELIA. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire, / And with a kind of umber smirch my face; / The like do you; so shall we pass along, / And never stir assailants.

   c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], lines 101–104

   Synonyms: besmirch, file, soil, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood)

2. archaicfigurativelytransitiveTo harm the reputation of; to smear or slander.

   Synonyms: besmirch, libel, muddy, abase, bring down to size, cut down to size, debase, defame

plural smirches

1. astronomyA chirp of radiation power from an astronomical body that has a smeared appearance on its plot in the time-frequency plane (usually associated with massive bodies orbiting supermassive black holes)

   The strain h(t) produced by a smirch in LISA is given by h(t) = −-A(t)cos[(t) + φ(t)]

   2003, B. S. Sathyaprakash, BF Schutz, “Templates for stellar mass black holes falling into supermassive black holes”, in Classical and Quantum Gravity, volume 20, number 10

   1 more example

   By observing a smirch, LISA offers a unique opportunity to directly map the spacetime geometry around the central object and test whether or not this structure is in accordance with the expectations of general realtivity.

   2005, John M. T. Thompson, Advances in Astronomy: From the Big Bang to the Solar System, →ISBN, page 133