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

See Examples For:

besmear

They make little fires during the day, sleeping at night among the warm ashes, with which they besmear their bodies.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Kerr

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 H. Bencraft Joly

Beslobber, be-slob′ėr, v.t. to besmear with the spittle running from one's mouth: to cover with drivelling kisses: to flatter fulsomely.—v.t.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various

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 Aimée G. Leffingwel McKenzie

I had noticed before, in the Malmö prison, how the prisoners tried to besmear this glass, or scratch on it, with a sort of fury, so that it was often impossible to see through it.

From Recollections of My Childhood and Youth by Georg Morris Cohen Brandes