to be a source of sharp, local, and usually superficial pain, as a wound.
to be the cause of a sharp, stinging pain, as an irritating application, a blow, etc.
to feel a sharp, stinging pain, as in a wound.
to suffer keenly from wounded feelings.
She smarted under their criticism.
to feel shame or remorse or to suffer in punishment or in return for something.
quick or prompt in action, as persons.
having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability.
a smart student.
shrewd or sharp, as a person in dealing with others or as in business dealings.
a smart businessman.
clever, witty, or readily effective, as a speaker, speech, rejoinder, etc.
dashingly or impressively neat or trim in appearance, as persons, dress, etc.
socially elegant; sophisticated or fashionable.
the smart crowd.
saucy; pert.
smart remarks.
sharply brisk, vigorous, or active.
to walk with smart steps.
sharply severe, as a blow, stroke, etc.
sharp or keen.
a smart pain.
Digital Technology.
(of a machine, system, etc.) equipped with electronic control mechanisms, software programs, etc., and capable of remote, automated, and seemingly intelligent operation.
smart copiers;
smart weapons;
a smart thermostat.
equipped with microprocessors, as for data processing, internet access, etc. (usually used in combination).
a smartphone;
a smartwatch.
having properties that can be changed in response to stimuli or environmental conditions; self-regulating.
smart fabrics that respond to temperature or light.
Older Use. considerable; fairly large.
a sharp local pain, usually superficial, as from a wound, blow, or sting.
keen mental suffering, as from wounded feelings, affliction, grievous loss, etc.
Slang. smarts, intelligence; common sense.
He never had the smarts to use his opportunities.
astute, as in business; clever or bright
quick, witty, and often impertinent in speech
a smart talker
fashionable; chic
a smart hotel
well-kept; neat
causing a sharp stinging pain
vigorous or brisk
dialect considerable or numerous
a smart price
(of systems) operating as if by human intelligence by using automatic computer control
(of a projectile or bomb) containing a device that allows it to be guided to its target
to feel, cause, or be the source of a sharp stinging physical pain or keen mental distress
a nettle sting smarts
he smarted under their abuse
(often foll by for) to suffer a harsh penalty
First recorded before 1050; Middle English (verb) smerten, Old English -smeortan (only in the compound fyrsmeortende “painful like fire”), cognate with Old High German smerzan ( German schmerzen ); (adjective) Middle English smerte, smart “quick, prompt, sharp,” originally, “biting, smarting,” late Old English smearte, akin to the verb; (adverb and noun) Middle English smerte, derivative of the adjective
Although smart is most often used to describe someone who is intelligent, you can also call someone a smart, chic dresser or a smart, sassy wisecracker. Smart often implies something good, but not always. If someone cautions you, "Don't be smart with me!" — they are demanding that you stop acting so bold and rude. As a verb, if something smarts, then it hurts. If your knee smarts, then you probably whacked it. However, if someone says that you are a smart dresser or a smart thinker, you can take those comments as compliments.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“He’s smart, he’s energetic, he’s young. He’s committed,” Kermanian said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
For young people with similar ambitions, live entertainment could be a smart path to follow.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
The unit has bled tens of billions of dollars, and Meta has increasingly shifted its hardware focus toward AI-powered smart glasses, a promising consumer release outside social media.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Welcome back to Don’t Short Yourself, where we cut through the financial noise to offer smart, relatable tips for growing your wealth and managing your money.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
It was her second favorite subject, besides how smart Alice was, and how pretty, and how talented, and how it would all go to waste if Gladys Herdman bit her to death.
From "The Best School Year Ever" by Barbara Robinson
Smart glasses are rapidly moving from a niche gadget to a mainstream consumer technology, increasingly being marketed as AI assistants rather than simply wearable cameras.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
French startup My Smart Book launched something similar in mid-April.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
One example is the original Smart Car, with the boron-steel safety cage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
A finance professor at London Business School, he is the author of the forthcoming book, “The Madness of Markets: Why Smart Investors Make Crazy Decisions and How to Exploit Them.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
“Okay, everyone, a few announcements before we head to first period,” Ms. Lafontaine said while she wrote on the Smart Board.
From "Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World" by Ashley Herring Blake
Someone smarter than me can do that calculation.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 30, 2026
And they’ve gotten smarter than the used-gum, spit-cup abstinence proponents of my youth.
From Slate ● Jul. 28, 2026
She says the newer version was an improvement, feeling "tight and secure" and looking smarter, "but, ultimately, it still wasn't designed to fit me".
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
The U.S. needs a smarter, more flexible grid that can adapt in real time, making better use of existing infrastructure to respond to rapidly changing conditions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
Deep down, I do think I’m smarter than those twelve NO votes in humanities class last week.
From "Ask the Passengers" by A.S. King
Indexing is the easiest way to put the best judgment of the smartest people on Wall Street to work for you, at remarkably low cost.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
So if James wanted to spend his twilight chasing an elusive fifth championship, the single smartest thing he could do was take a pay cut to join a ready-made contender.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
"Just because we have the smartest people developing AI does not mean we have the ability to do so safely."
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Many of the smartest people in the world warned governments, companies and people Monday that they need to be ready for the deep impact that artificial intelligence is going to have on the economy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
“Maybe you should collect feathers instead of rocks. It's not the smartest collection when you’re on the run,” he’d told them more than once.
From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline
Risky behavior mixed with exceptional smarts is a subject near and dear to Elm’s founder, Victor Haghani.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
The new Siri is powered by Apple Intelligence, which runs on Apple Foundational Models, which tap in to Google’s Gemini smarts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
While Borthwick has generally been wedded to speed and breakdown smarts in his back row, there is the option of adding some bosh.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2026
It’s essentially the difference between book smarts and street smarts.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 28, 2026
Dasch detected a shrewdness in Haupt, and street smarts.
From Nazi Saboteurs by Samantha Seiple
Asia stocks hit a 11-week low on Wednesday as renewed concerns about U.S. interest rates slugged Wall Street, while investors still smarted from dismal Chinese economic data and the absence of meaningful stimulus.
From Reuters ● Aug. 16, 2023
There was much speculation about his state of mind, whether the scars of the first defeat still smarted.
From BBC ● Mar. 29, 2023
When such flourishes distressed Obama advisers, Mr. Biden — who had been his own boss for decades — smarted at having his political intuition questioned or overruled, former aides say.
From New York Times ● May 11, 2020
“The decision still smarted a little, but it was the right one,” he writes.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 9, 2019
His eyes smarted and it was as though some fever in him made everything too bright and sharp.
From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
Drake is smarting, and he spreads that hurt across more than an hour in the trilogy’s marquee album “Iceman.”
From Salon ● May 21, 2026
Earlier, Pep Guardiola's City went into their match against bottom side smarting after an embarrassing 3-1 Champions League defeat at Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt.
From Barron's ● Jan. 24, 2026
Derek Weeks started his search about six months ago, still smarting from last Christmas when he couldn’t secure a reindeer to go with his Santa.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
He is still smarting about the Dodgers’ response, adding “people are still talking about all of that.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2025
“It’ll quit smarting him in a minute now, and he’ll hush. Come on, now.”
From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
