smudge

[ smuhj ]

noun

1. a dirty mark or smear.
2. a smeary state.
3. a stifling smoke.
4. a smoky fire, especially one made for driving away mosquitoes or safeguarding fruit trees from frost.

verb (used with object)

, smudged, smudg·ing.

1. to mark with dirty streaks or smears.
2. to fill with smudge, as to drive away insects or protect fruit trees from frost.

verb (used without object)

, smudged, smudg·ing.

1. to form a smudge on something.
2. to become smudged:

   White shoes smudge easily.

3. to smolder or smoke; emit smoke, as a smudge pot.

smudge

/ smʌdʒ /

verb

1. to smear, blur, or soil or cause to do so
2. tr to fill (an area) with smoke in order to drive insects away or guard against frost

noun

1. a smear or dirty mark
2. a blurred form or area

   that smudge in the distance is a quarry

3. a smoky fire for driving insects away or protecting fruit trees or plants from frost

Derived Forms

• ˈsmudgeless, adjective
• ˈsmudgily, adverb

Other Words From

• smudged·ly adverb
• smudgeless adjective
• un·smudged adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of smudge¹

1400–50; late Middle English smogen (v.) < ?

Word History and Origins

Origin of smudge¹

C15: of uncertain origin

Example Sentences

I saw Trevor around the gym for months — scattered tattoos and black tank top with a cute smudge of climbing chalk on their ears.

From Los Angeles Times

It’s intellectually interesting to know that the faint gray smudge barely visible on the horizon is the result of literal pieces of the sun that have been blasted toward you at hundreds of miles a second, funneled into our atmosphere by Earth’s magnetic field and induced to emit light via graduate school physics concepts.

From Slate

But to the naked eye, on this night of nights, away from the light pollution of the cities, it was still just a slowly moving green-gray smudge, only there was just a lot more of it.

From Slate

I got a few distant glimpses during the first few years I lived here, a gray-green smudge on the horizon.

From Slate

But, against the odds, he found what he hoped for - a brown smudge on the white ice sheet.

From BBC

Related Words

• blemish
• blot