smite
Americanverb (used with object)
-
smites,
present (3rd person singular)
-
smote,
past participle, past
-
smit,
past (Obsolete)
-
smitten,
past participle
-
smiting
present participle
-
to strike or hit hard, with or as with the hand, a stick, or other weapon.
She smote him on the back with her umbrella.
-
to deliver or deal (a blow, hit, etc.) by striking hard.
-
to strike down, injure, or slay.
His sword had smitten thousands.
-
to afflict or attack with deadly or disastrous effect.
smitten by polio.
-
to affect mentally or morally with a sudden pang.
His conscience smote him.
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to affect suddenly and strongly with a specified feeling.
They were smitten with terror.
-
to impress favorably; charm; enamor.
He was smitten by her charms.
verb (used without object)
-
smites,
present (3rd person singular)
-
smote,
past participle, past
-
smit,
past (Obsolete)
-
smitten,
past participle
-
smiting
present participle
idioms
verb
-
to strike with a heavy blow or blows
-
to damage with or as if with blows
-
to afflict or affect severely
smitten with flu
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to afflict in order to punish
-
to strike forcibly or abruptly
the sun smote down on him
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
smitesimple
-
smitessimple
-
have smittenperfect
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have smoteperfect
-
has smittenperfect
-
has smoteperfect
-
am smitingprogressive
-
are smitingprogressive
-
is smitingprogressive
-
have been smitingperfect progressive
-
has been smitingperfect progressive
Past
-
smitsimple
-
smotesimple
-
had smittenperfect
-
had smoteperfect
-
was smitingprogressive
-
were smitingprogressive
-
had been smitingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of smite
First recorded before 900; Middle English smiten, Old English smītan; cognate with German schmeissen “to throw,” Dutch smijten
Explanation
To smite is to strike with a heavy blow. If you’re playing an ancient Norse warrior in a play, you might get to smite your enemy with a club. Smite comes from the old English for striking or smearing. You’re most likely to find it reading Biblical stories or mythologies, for example, where the thunderbolt of Zeus smites some misbehaving Greek fellow. The past participle of this verb is the cool word smitten, which is what you say about someone who's fallen head over heels for something or someone, that is, their emotions have been struck.
Vocabulary lists containing smite
The Hobbit
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"To Build a Fire," Vocabulary from the short story
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Beowulf vocabulary
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Curtis and I served together in the state Senate, he is your state senator. He is Republican. I am a Democrat. But when we team up in a bipartisan manner, we will smite evil.”
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 25, 2024
He can create countless jobs with a flick of his fingers, and smite al-Qaeda leaders with the lightning that flies from his open palms.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 9, 2022
On it, we hear a 31-year-old woman impersonating her 19-year-old self reflecting on her 15-year-old self, and doing it all to smite the men who hoped to seize control of her songs.
From New York Times ● Dec. 22, 2021
She can’t summon Jason from the depths to smite the iniquitous.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2021
It is entirely possible that this dishonored past will rise up soon to smite all of us.
From "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin
Indecent exposure … Fantasy author Terry Goodkind has publicly castigated a pirate of his ebook Wizard hero Richard Rahl smites wrongdoers with his Sword of Truth.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 11, 2012
"He plays silly shots to get out and bowls lots of pies but inbetween times he smites big sixes and bowls unplayable deliveries."
From The Guardian ● Jan. 12, 2011
Pareja nods away a long high ball, but it drops out to the onrushing Russian, who smites the thing first time, dipping and fizzing past Dykan in the Spartak goal.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 19, 2010
But he not only smites his foes; he also helps his friends.
From Time Magazine Archive
Time foots it fleeter far Than all the surging crowd your beauty smites Like some coruscant star.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, November 4th 1893 by Various
Many who belonged not to the orders, smit with desire for the glory of martyrdom, cast the mantles of Templars around them, and went cheerfully to death as such.
From Secret Societies of the Middle Ages by Thomas Keightley
Day after day still passed away, gaunt Famine pressed again, Each turned away from each, as if smit with a sudden pain.
From Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 by Various
Ah for the eyes that have smit me with madness!
From The Literature of Ecstasy by Albert Mordell
There the steel hisses and the sparks upleap, And clanging anvils, smit with dexterous aim, Groan through the cavern, as their strokes they heap, And restless in the furnace pants the flame.
From The Æneid of Virgil Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor by Edward Fairfax Taylor
How smit was poor Adelaide's heart at the sight!
From The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. The Songs of Scotland of the past half century by Charles Rogers
I’ve never touched a gun nor smote anything larger than a stink bug.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
Like the Boston Red Sox finally beating the Yankees in 2004, Buffalo smote their longtime nemesis in epic fashion.
From New York Times ● Jan. 16, 2022
So went Robert Downey Jr. from the presence of Jimmy Fallon and smote the entire internet with an unwatchable video.
From Slate ● Apr. 26, 2018
In which arena rock was smote upside the backside by the punk movement.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 8, 2016
They wandered in the valley forever; and they smote the rock, forever; and the waters sprang, perpetually, in the perpetual desert.
From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin
However, BBC Sport understands Arteta has become so smitten with the notion of signing Vinicius that he is viewed internally as the club's number one target.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Trump is so smitten with his Florsheim dress shoes that he shod his whole Cabinet in the same footwear.
From Slate ● Mar. 14, 2026
The adaptation retained the 18th-century setting and the central plot: The teenage siren Manon, on her way to a convent, runs off with a smitten young aristocrat, the Chevalier Des Grieux.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026
Pep Guardiola is so smitten by Rayan Cherki that the Manchester City boss said he wanted to kiss the "incredible" French star after his virtuoso performance in Saturday's 2-1 win at Nottingham Forest.
From Barron's ● Dec. 27, 2025
Probably because I couldn’t bear the idea that the girl with whom I was virtually smitten might actually be some middle-aged dude named Chuck, with back hair and male-pattern baldness.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
Mr. Harbour shines as the jolly, but surprisingly in shape, fat man smiting foes with a Christmas star, icicles and even a lethal candy cane.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 3, 2023
“Even in Akhenaten’s time, so much of her iconography was that of a male king, smiting enemies and doing things like that.”
From Scientific American ● Nov. 4, 2022
There is a kind of literary symmetry to Ms. Newman’s smiting her former boss with the very tools he taught her to use.
From New York Times ● Feb. 9, 2018
Sure they’re great for smiting your enemies, but I bet they’re also perfect for quickly taking you to a tropical getaway.
From The Verge ● Jun. 28, 2016
There were beds ringing, docks smiting in belfries, standards floating—until the whole air above them seemed to be alive.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
