different between bemire vs daub

English

Etymology

From Middle English *bemyren (possibly attested in Middle English bemyred), equivalent to be- (“all over”) +? mire.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /b??ma??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /b??ma???/

Verb

bemire (third-person singular simple present bemires, present participle bemiring, simple past and past participle bemired)

1. (archaic) To soil with mud or a similar substance.
   • 1603, John Davies, The Discovery of the Little World, with the Government Thereof, Oxford, p. 118,^[1]

     The Minde, constrain’d the Bodies want to feele,

     Makes Salves of Earth the Bodies hurt to heale,

     Which doe the Mind bemire with thoughts vnfitt;

   • 1684, Nahum Tate (translator), “The Second Eclogue” in John Dryden (ed.), Miscellany Poems, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 13,^[2]

     Ah me! while I fond wretch indulge my Dreams,

     Winds blast my Flow’rs, and Boars bemire my Streams.

   • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, London: Benjamin Motte, Part II, Chapter 5, pp. 99-100,^[3]

     There was a Cow-Dung in the Path, and I must needs try my Activity by attempting to leap over it. I took a Run, but unfortunately jumped short, and found my self just in the Middle up to my Knees. I waded through with some Difficulty, and one of the Footmen wiped me as clean as he could with his Handkerchief; for I was filthily bemired […]

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter 29,^[4]

     I wished to rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh.

2. (archaic) To immerse or trap in mire.
   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, London: Nath. Ponder, pp. 13-14,^[5],[6]

     True, there are by the direction of the Law-giver, certain good and subs[tantial] Steps, placed even through the very midst of this Slough; but at such a time as this place doth much spue out [its filth] as it doth against change of weather, these steps are hardly seen; or if they be, Men through the diziness of their heads, step besides; and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding the steps be there […]

   • 1802, Rembrandt Peale, Account of the Skeleton of the Mammoth, a Non-Descript Carnivorous Animal of Immense Size Found in America, London, p. 38,^[7]

     In two of the morasses there was not depth sufficient to have bemired an animal of such magnitude and strength […]

   • 1888, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow, Book I, Chapter 2,^[8]

     I saw your horse bemired, and put him from his agony; which, by my sooth! an ye had been a more merciful rider, ye had done yourself.

   • 1912, Alice C. Thompson, The Good Old Days: A Comedy in One Act, Philadelphia: Penn Publishing, p. 9,^[9]

     Likely the stage-coach is bemired. The roads at this season of the year are none too good.

3. (figuratively) To stain or mar, as with infamy or disgrace; to tarnish; to sully.

Anagrams

• berime, bireme

English

Etymology

From Middle English daub (noun), from Middle English dauben (“to plaster or whitewash; cover with clay; bespatter”, verb), from Old Northern French dauber (“to whitewash; plaster”), of uncertain origin. Probably from Latin dealb?re (“to whiten thoroughly”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d??b/
• (US) IPA^(key): /d?b/, /d?b/
• Rhymes: -??b

Noun

daub (countable and uncountable, plural daubs)

1. Excrement or clay used as a bonding material in construction.
2. A soft coating of mud, plaster, etc.
3. A crude or amateurish painting.

Derived terms

• wattle and daub

Related terms

• (dab): dab, pat, splat

Translations

Verb

daub (third-person singular simple present daubs, present participle daubing, simple past and past participle daubed)

1. (intransitive, transitive) To apply (something) to a surface in hasty or crude strokes.

   Synonyms: apply, coat, cover, plaster, smear

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Exodus 2.3,^[1]

     […] she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch […]

   • 1865, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter 16,^[2]

     […] Mrs. Gibson could not well come up to the girl’s bedroom every night and see that she daubed her face and neck over with the cosmetics so carefully provided for her.

   • 1869, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Chapter 26,^[3]

     An artist friend fitted her out with his castoff palettes, brushes, and colors, and she daubed away, producing pastoral and marine views such as were never seen on land or sea.

   • 1940, Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, London: Jonathan Cape, Chapter 15, p. 185,^[4]

     […] as he watched, [the motorcar] came up the snow-covered road, green and brown painted, in broken patches of daubed color, the windows blued over so that you could not see in […]

   • 1952, Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt, Norton, 2004, Chapter 3, p. 39,^[5]

     Blood was running to her shoe, and her stocking was torn in a jagged hole. […] she wet toilet paper and daubed until the red was gone from her stocking, but the red kept coming.

   • 1969, Chaim Potok, The Promise, New York: Fawcett Crest, Book 3, Chapter 16, p. 379,^[6]

     They were expecting to see me, she said, daubing paint on the canvas and stepping back to gauge the effect.

   • 2007, Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain, New York: Weinstein Books, Book 1, Chapter 21, p. 226,^[7]

     Cylindrical lanterns daubed in red writing hung at intervals across wooden beams […]

2. (transitive) To paint (a picture, etc.) in a coarse or unskilful manner.
   • 1695, John Dryden (translator), Observations on the Art of Painting by Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, London: W. Rogers, p. 201,^[8]

     […] a lame, imperfect Piece, rudely daub’d over with too little Reflection and too much haste.

   • 1724, Isaac Watts, Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, London: John Clark and Richard Hett, 2nd edition, Part 2, Chapter 3, Section 1, p. 189,^[9]

     If a Picture is daub’d with many bright and glaring Colours, the vulgar Eye admires it as an excellent Piece […]

   • 1826, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, An Essay on Mind, Book I, in The Earlier Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1826-1833, London: Bartholomew Robson, 1878, pp. 25-26,^[10]

     If some gay picture, vilely daubed, were seen

     With grass of azure, and a sky of green,

     Th’impatient laughter we’d suppress in vain,

     And deem the painter jesting, or insane.

   • 1964, Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man, Vintage, 2010,

     […] this stretch of the shore is still filthy with trash; high-school gangs still daub huge scandalous words on its beach-wall, and seashells are still less easy to find here than discarded rubbers.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To cover with a specious or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal.
   • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act III, Scene 5,^[11]

     So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue,

   • 1820, John Clare, “The Universal Epitaph” in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, London: Taylor & Hessey, p. 91,^[12]

     No flattering praises daub my stone,

     My frailties and my faults to hide;

4. (transitive, obsolete) To flatter excessively or grossly.
   • 1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 2, Letter 28, p. 73,^[13]

     I can safely say, however, that without any daubing at all, I am, very sincerely, Your very affectionate, humble servant,

5. (transitive, obsolete) To put on without taste; to deck gaudily.
   • 1697, John Dryden, “On the Three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday Morning, Febr. the 26th, 1670/1” in John Denham et al., Poems on affairs of state from the time of Oliver Cromwell, to the abdication of K. James the Second, London, p. 148,^[14]

     Yet shall Whitehall the Innocent, the Good,

     See these men dance all daub’d with Lace and Blood.

   • 1762, Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, London, for the author, Volume 1, Letter 50, p. 224,^[15]

     […] whenever they came in order to pay those islanders a visit, [they] were generally very well dressed, and very poor, daubed with lace, but all the gilding on the outside.

Derived terms

• dauber (“unskilled painter”)

Translations

See also

• dab

Further reading

• daub on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Buda, abud, baud