different between smicket vs smicker

English

Etymology

From a diminutive of smock.

Noun

smicket (plural smickets)

1. (obsolete, Britain, dialect) A woman's undergarment; a smock.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)

English

Etymology

From Middle English smiker, from Old English smicer, smicor (“beauteous, beautiful, elegant, fair, fine, neat, tasteful”), from Proto-Germanic *smikraz (“fine, elegant, delicate, tender”), from Proto-Indo-European *sm?yg- (“small, delicate”), from Proto-Indo-European *sm?-, *smey- (“to smear, stroke, wipe, rub”). Cognate with Middle High German smecker (“neat, elegant”), Ancient Greek ??????? (smikrós), ?????? (mikrós, “small, short”), Lithuanian smeigti (“to lunge, thrust, jab”), Latin m?ca (“crumb, morsel, bit”).

For the verb, compare Swedish smickra (“to flatter, coax, wheedle, butter up”), Danish smigre (“to flatter”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sm?k?(?)/

Adjective

smicker (comparative more smicker, superlative most smicker)

1. Elegant; fine; gay.
   • 1606, John Ford, Fame's Memorial

     No, his deep-reaching spirit could not brook
     The fond addiction to such vanity;
     Regardful of his honour he forsook
     The smicker use of court-humanity.

2. Amorous; wanton.
3. Spruce; smart.
   • 1590, Thomas Lodge, "Corydon’s Song", in Rosalynde

     A smicker boy, a lither swain,
     Heigh ho, a smicker swain,
     That his love was wanton fain, […]

Verb

smicker (third-person singular simple present smickers, present participle smickering, simple past and past participle smickered)

1. (intransitive) To look amorously or wantonly

Derived terms

• smickering
• smickly

Anagrams

• Emricks, Remicks