Smut v.

Also 7 smutt, smoot. [Cf. SMOT v., and MHG. smutzen (G. schmutzen) to smear, dirty.]

  1.  trans. To mark with some black or dirty substance; to blacken, smudge.

  α.  1587.  J. Harmar, trans. Beza’s Serm., 195. No man can like to be smutted and blatched in his face.

1624.  Middleton, Game at Chess, III. i. W. Pawn. White quickly soils you know. B. J. Pawn.… Get thee gone then, I shall smut thee.

1668.  H. More, Div. Dial., III. iv. (1713), 187. For the whole Mass of Mankind is like a Company fallen asleep by the Fire-side, whom some unlucky Wag has smutted with his sooty and greazy fingers.

1705.  Addison, Italy, Pavia, 26. The Inside is so smutted with Dust, and the Smoak of Lamps.

1752.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 188, ¶ 12. Contriving to smut the nose of any stranger who was to be initiated into the club.

1836.  Whately, in Miss E. J. Whately, Life (1866), I. 366. He who wrestles with a chimney-sweeper is sure to be smutted.

1877.  Daily News, 27 Dec., 6/1. The dingy whitewashed walls, smutted by the smoke of the tottering stove that roars like a small tempest in the corner.

  β.  1657.  W. Morice, Coena quasi Κοινὴ, xxxiii. 306. To keep my cloaths from being smootted by a Chimnie-sweeper, or defiled by a Scavenger, I shun all contact with them.

  b.  fig. To stain with some fault or imperfection.

  α.  1601.  Dent, Pathw. Heaven, 202. What is the cause why some one sinne doth so blot and smut the most excellent men?

1674.  Cotton, in Flatman’s Poems, 47.

  β.  a. 1661.  Fuller, Worthies (1840), II. 102. Considering the sottishness of superstition in the age he lived in, he is less smooted therewith than any of his contemporaries.

  2.  To affect (grain) with smut.

1626.  Bacon, Sylva, § 497. There falleth also Mildew upon Corn and smutteth it.

1812.  Sir J. Sinclair, Syst. Husb. Scot., I. 325. Having often observed in his wheat fields, a few ridges alternately clean and smutted.

1841.  Hood, Tale Trumpet, 761. Though the wishes that Witches utter Can … Smut and mildew the corn on the stalk.

  b.  intr. Of grain: To be affected by smut.

1657.  S. Purchas, Pol. Flying-Ins., 143. Corn thus imbibed, and then sown without lime, will not smut.

1677.  Plot, Oxfordsh., 244. Wheat following the dung Cart on their best Land, is the more liable to smut.

1745.  Gentl. Mag., 31. Corn managed in this manner is not apt to smut or mildew.

  3.  trans. To make obscene.

1722.  Welsted, Prol. Steele’s Consc. Lovers, 11. Another smuts his Scene (a cunning Shaver), Sure of the Rakes and of the Wenches Favour.

  4.  intr. Of fish: To rise at, or feed on, smuts.

1889.  Sat. Rev., 18 May, 612/2. These demonstrations are made by trout bulging, tailing, smutting, or minnowing.

1892.  Field, 4 June, 838/2. The fish were smutting or bulging on the shallows.