Besmittian

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To soil, smear, or defile something by daubing it with dirt, grease, or some other foul substance
2. To mark or contaminate a surface by smearing it with filth, so that it becomes stained and polluted
3. Describing the act of staining or sullying an object or person with muck, mire, or similar defiling matter

Etymology: Old English "besmittian" meant "to defile, pollute, or stain," built from the prefix "be-" (here meaning "over" or "thoroughly") and "smittian," "to smear" or "to soil." The root "smittian" is related to "smite" in its older sense of "to strike," and the idea behind both is of something that leaves a mark on contact. A smear or stain was, in the Anglo-Saxon imagination, a kind of transferred blow. The word's history shows a steady narrowing of its target. Its verb cousin "smitten" kept the sense of striking or being struck, and was later used figuratively of being overcome by love, but "besmit" itself stayed in the territory of dirt and corruption. Its Middle English descendant "besmitten" survived into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it is now archaic and survives mainly in dictionaries and in older translations of the Bible.