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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

smudge.

A blemish or smear, especially a dark or sooty one.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/smʌd͡ʒ/UK, US
  1. A blemish or smear, especially a dark or sooty one.

    countable · uncountable
    There was a smudge on the paper.
  2. Dense smoke, such as that used for fumigation.

    countable · uncountable
  3. A heap of damp combustibles partially ignited and burning slowly, placed on the windward side of a house, tent, etc. to keep off mosquitoes or other insects.

    US · countable · uncountable
  4. A quantity of herbs used in suffumigation.

    countable · especially · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Derived from the verb (see below). Doublet of smutch.

verb/smʌd͡ʒ/UK, US
  1. To obscure by blurring; to smear.

  2. To soil or smear with dirt.

  3. To use dense smoke to protect from insects.

  4. To stifle or smother with smoke.

  5. To burn herbs as a cleansing ritual (suffumigation).

    intransitive
  6. To subject to ritual burning of herbs (suffumigation, smudging).

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English *smogen (attested in the gerund smogynge (“soiling, smudging”)), of obscure origin. Compare Middle English besmudded, bismuddet (“filthy”), Middle English smod (“filth, obscene behaviour”), Middle Dutch smoddich (“filthy, dirty”), German schmutzig (“dirty, filthy”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.