Smired

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Archaic past form of smear, meaning coated or daubed over with a greasy or sticky substance
2. Describing something that had been spread or rubbed over with grease, ointment or some other oily matter in an older usage
3. Old-fashioned term for having been smeared with a sticky, oily or greasy material spread across a surface

Etymology: "Smired" is the past tense and past participle of "smire," an old verb meaning to smear something with a greasy or sticky substance, or to anoint it. Modern readers are most likely to meet it in older texts or dialect writing, where it describes something daubed with ointment, tallow, or paint. The verb descends from Old English "smerian," which had the same sense of rubbing a substance onto a surface. It belongs to a family of Germanic words for smearing and greasing, including Dutch "smeren" and German "schmieren," which still mean to spread, grease, or smear. English "smear" comes from the same ancestral root, so "smire" is essentially an older sibling of that more familiar word, and the two were used side by side for centuries before "smire" faded out.

Synonyms: smeared, daubed, smudged