Meaning of smutch | Babel Free

Definitions

A stain, smudge or blot.

Examples

“As let a man sticke a Candle to a stone wall, though the Candle do not burne through it, yet it will leaue a shrewd smutch behind it, soyling the wall, so as it will not easily be wyped out. Thus it is with tentations, though they doe not all the mischiefe they would and might doe, they will yet be sure to leaue an impression of filth and staines behinde them.”

“[…] Examine well His milk-white hand. The palm is hardly clean— But here and there an ugly smutch appears. Foh! ’twas a bribe that left it.”

“I could favour you with sundry touches Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek’s yellowness”

“Strether felt his character receive, for the instant, a smutch from all the wrong things he had suspected or believed.”

“Looking out of her window, she was alerted by a smutch of bronze light glowering on this Anglo-Flemish landscape.”

CEFR level