[See prec. and cf. SMOOCH v.] trans. To blacken, make dirty, smut, smudge. Also in fig. context.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 121. Why that’s my Bawcock: what? has’t smutch’d thy Nose?
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm., II. 275. It would not do well to have the Collier and Fuller live together; what one cleanseth, the other will crock and smutch.
1690. C. Nesse, Hist. O. & N. Test., I. 20. The brightest ivory, if smutched with the fire, contracteth a filthy blackness.
1790. Cowper, Odyss., XIII. 536. A cloak And kirtle … foul And smutch’d with smoke.
1818. Keats, Endym., II. 90. As though afraid to smutch Even with mealy gold the waters clear.
1850. Browning, Christmas Eve, xiv. Under the foot they could not smutch, Lay all the fleshly and the bestial.
1876. Holland, Seven Oaks, xv. 210. Puppies that might … fawn before her, but might not smutch her robes with their dirty feet.
b. fig. To stain, sully, besmirch, etc., morally or otherwise.
1640. Yorke, Union Hon., To Rdr. Some, who must quarrell … with my Booke … and smutch it with a score of my Profession.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), II. 134. The Fumes … from his Spleen … have … smutched and sullied his Brain.
1858. Morris, Old Love, 158. This love is not so hard to smutch.
1865. J. Skelton, Campaigner at Home, ix. 264. The passion is always pure. It is never smutched by sensuality.
Hence Smutching vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1611. Cotgr., Souillement, a … slurrying, durtying, smutching.
1648. Jenkyn, Blind Guide, i. 3. He is but your scullion to make your integrity shine the brighter by all these reproachfull smutchings.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust, III. (1875), II. 182. The black blood’s horrible and smutching stains.
