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

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 Brandes, Georg Morris Cohen

At funerals, "the women besmear themselves with the most disgusting filth."

From Primitive Love and Love-Stories by Finck, Henry Theophilus

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

Overstain, ō-vėr-stān′, v.t. to besmear the surface of.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various

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