smut
Americannoun
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a particle of soot; sooty matter.
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a black or dirty mark; smudge.
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indecent language or publications; obscenity.
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Plant Pathology.
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a disease of plants, especially cereal grasses, characterized by the conversion of affected parts into black, powdery masses of spores, caused by fungi of the order Ustilaginales.
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a fungus causing this disease.
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verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
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a small dark smudge or stain, esp one caused by soot
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a speck of soot or dirt
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something obscene or indecent
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any of various fungal diseases of flowering plants, esp cereals, in which black sooty masses of spores cover the affected parts
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any parasitic basidiomycetous fungus of the order Ustilaginales that causes such a disease
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angling a minute midge or other insect relished by trout
verb
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to mark or become marked or smudged, as with soot
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to affect (grain) or (of grain) to be affected with smut
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(tr) to remove smut from (grain)
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(tr) to make obscene
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(intr) to emit soot or smut
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(intr) angling (of trout) to feed voraciously on smuts
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Any of various bacidiomycete fungi that are parasitic on plants and are distinguished by the black, powdery masses of spores that appear as sooty smudges on the affected plant parts. Smuts are parasitic chiefly on cereal grasses like corn and wheat and can cause enormous damage to crops.
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Any of the various plant diseases caused by smuts, such as corn smut.
Usage
What else does smut mean? Smut is obscene or pornographic material, including pictures and writing.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of smut
First recorded in 1580–90; akin to earlier smit ( Old English smitte ), by association with smudge, smutch
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:
Among the pet projects for the new guard was the library, which council members alleged was little better than a smut shop because the young adult section featured books about puberty and LGBTQ+ issues.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 28, 2025
To her million-plus Twitter followers, right-wing influencer Brigitte Gabriel groused, "Children should not be watching this smut!"
From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2023
He settled on using one from corn smut, a fungal pathogen.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 18, 2023
Thursday’s announcement said Russia would “take all measures” to prevent contamination by wheat smut fungus and would suspend exports to China if it was found.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 24, 2022
Ralph was kneeling by the remains of the fire like a sprinter at his mark and his face was half-hidden by hair and smut.
From "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
Fungal rusts and smuts that are proliferating in our increasingly warmer and wetter world endanger the world’s coffee supply.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 15, 2022
By the time of “Casanova,” Fellini had more or less forsaken actuality, with its risks and smuts, for the controllable universe of the studio—specifically, for the cavernous soundstages of Cinecittà, in Rome.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 17, 2020
In addition, the basidiomycota includes smuts and rusts, which are important plant pathogens, and toadstools.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
Some are parasitic, like the smuts that attack our crops.
From New York Times ● Jun. 23, 2010
He seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts in London were not quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
Hilliard disapproved: "A picture a little shadowed may be borne withal for the rounding of it, but so greatly smutted or darkened as some use disgrace it, and is like truth ill told."
From Time Magazine Archive
Thumbnail Operas Long have composers wagged reproving fingers at the cinema, regarding it as a disorderly small boy whose grubby touch has too often smutted the dress of their lady, Music.
From Time Magazine Archive
As the Rebs went back, a nice looking young fellow, small of stature, with bright black eyes, whose face was smutted up with powder and smoke, came along where I lay.
From Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 As Private, Sergeant and Lieutenant in the Sixty-First Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry by Fuller, Charles Augustus
While shirts supplied the masquerade, And smutted cheeks the visors made: But, oh! what masquers richly dight Can boast of bosoms half so light!
From In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 Christmas Poems from 'round the World by Morris, Harrison S. (Harrison Smith)
I ran to the window and peered through the smutted panes, but there was no one outside to see or to help me.
From David Malcolm by Lloyd, Nelson
If I went up to dress, they would shoot into my collar-box, or amongst my clean shirts, smutting them all over.
From Humorous Readings and Recitations In prose and verse by Various
Its mighty uncertain how long he will tarry; for lie-yers live by talking; turning of words upside down, and wrong side outards, and reading words backards, and whitewashing black things, and smutting of white ones.
From At the Mercy of Tiberius by Evans, Augusta J. (Augusta Jane)
It should seem also, that they sometimes heightened their black colour, by smutting their bodies; as a mark was left behind on any clean substance, such as white paper, when they handled it.
To prevent the pots and kettles from smutting every thing they touch, each has a separate bag in which it is packed and carried.
From How to Camp Out by Gould, John Mead
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.
