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smear

/smiɚ/noun, verb1 syllable

Smear means: charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone.

Synonyms for smear35

noun, as in a blemish made by dirt

smudge, spot, blot, daub, smirch, slur

noun, as in an act that brings discredit to the person who does it

blot, smirch, spot, stain

noun, as in slanderous defamation

vilification, malignment

noun, as in a thin tissue or blood sample spread on a glass slide and stained for cytologic examination and diagnosis under a microscope

cytologic smear, cytosmear

verb, as in charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone

defame, slander, smirch, asperse, denigrate, calumniate, sully, besmirch

verb, as in make a smudge on; soil by smudging

blur, smudge, smutch

verb, as in cover (a surface) by smearing (a substance) over it

daub

also used for smear

apply, plaster, spread, bedaub, coat, cover, layer, dirty, soil, assoil, beclart, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood), bedizen, badmouth

Includes material from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

What does smear mean?8

verb

1

charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone“The journalists have defamed me!”

2

make a smudge on; soil by smudging

3

cover (a surface) by smearing (a substance) over it“smear the wall with paint”

4

stain by smearing or daubing with a dirty substance

noun

1

a blemish made by dirt“he had a smudge on his cheek”

2

an act that brings discredit to the person who does it“he made a huge blot on his copybook”

3

slanderous defamation

4

a thin tissue or blood sample spread on a glass slide and stained for cytologic examination and diagnosis under a microscope

Definitions from the Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

What rhymes with smear?51

Show 40 near rhymes

All 51 rhymes for smear, grouped by syllable

Smear in a sentence

  • First clean it, smear it with a little oil, and put it back.JudithKiwi18
  • The ruling party is running a smear campaign against the opposition.CK
  • Put them on the baking pan and smear them with egg whites.tinytina
  • You can't smear an entire religion for what some extremists do in its name.Amastan
  • He left the pizzeria with his mouth smeared with sauce.AlanF_US
  • Sami smeared the chocolate all over the wall.OsoHombre
  • The fatal weapon was found in the chamber smeared with blood.Hybrid
  • She carefully smeared the sun cream on her legs and then on her arms.Nuel

Sentences from Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR, credited to their authors.

Forms of smear

as a noun

plural
smears

as a verb

past tense
smeared
present participle
smearing
third-person singular
smears
past participle
smeared