besmear

American  

[bih-smeer] / bɪˈsmɪər /

verb (used with object)

1. to smear all over; bedaub.

2. to sully; defile; soil.

   to besmear someone's reputation.

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besmear British  

/ bɪˈsmɪə /

verb

1. to smear over; daub

2. to sully; defile (often in the phrase besmear ( a person's ) reputation )

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Other Word Forms

• besmearer noun
• unbesmeared adjective

Etymology

Origin of besmear

before 1050; Middle English bismeren, Old English besmerian. See be-, smear

Example Sentences

She was about to besmear her face, when lady Feng pleaded: "My dear child, do let me off this time!"

From Hung Lou Meng, Book II Or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel in Two Books by Joly, H. Bencraft

And although we may besmear our liver and brain in the mire, how could we show our gratitude, even to so slight a degree as one ten-thousandth part.

From Hung Lou Meng, Book I Or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel in Two Books by Joly, H. Bencraft

He sat behind his card-strewn counter holding the stencil brush like a sort of weapon ready to besmear that face of sneering assurance if its owner ventured too near.

From Pee-Wee Harris by Fitzhugh, Percy Keese

Was it honour and fair play to besmear my mother's name, to throw reflections upon my birth?

From The Day of Judgment by Hocking, Joseph

I lose myself in the recollections of my childhood like an old man … I do not expect anything further in life than a succession of sheets of paper to besmear with black.

From The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters by McKenzie, Aimée G. Leffingwel