Printing slang. Also smout. [Of obscure origin.] intr. To do casual work in a printing-house where one is not regularly employed (see quots.). † Also const. on (a firm). So Smooting vbl. sb.
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, 360. If a Journey-man Smout more or less on another Printing House. Ibid., 390. Workmen when they are out of constant Work, do sometimes accept of a Day or twos Work, or a Weeks Work at another Printing-house: this By-work they call Smouting [Hence in Holme and Luckombe.]
1757. Franklin, in Amer. Dict. Printing (1894), 513/1. If a fat old fellow should come to your printing-house and request a little smouting.
1865. C. Knight, Shadows Old Booksellers, 82. He [Gent] got no regular employment, but laboured here and there without settlement, upon what was called ‘smouting work.’
1892. Southward & Powell, Pract. Printing (ed. 4), 569. ‘Smooting.’—No member of the [Typographical] Association is permitted to work for any other employer than the one by whom he is engaged…, except in case of accident…. Transgression of this rule is called ‘smooting.’
Smoot, obs. form of SMUT sb. and v.
