different between smirch vs blotch

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??(?)t?

Etymology 1

Attested since the 15th century; possibly from Old French esmorcher (“to torture”), from Latin morsus (“bitten”).

Noun

smirch (countable and uncountable, plural smirches)

1. Dirt, or a stain.
   • 1998, Michael Foss, People of the First Crusade, page 6, ?ISBN.

     Too often, in the years between 800 and 1050, the everyday sun declined through the smirch of flame and smoke of a monastery or town robbed and burnt.

2. (figuratively) A stain on somebody's reputation.
   • 2008, W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, page 33, ?ISBN.

     there were some business transactions which savored of dangerous speculation, if not dishonesty; and around it all lay the smirch of the Freedmen's Bank.

Verb

smirch (third-person singular simple present smirches, present participle smirching, simple past and past participle smirched)

1. (transitive) To dirty; to make dirty.

   Synonyms: besmirch, soil

   • 1600, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act I Scene III, lines 101-04

     CELIA. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,

     And with a kind of umber smirch my face;

     The like do you; so shall we pass along,

     And never stir assailants.

2. (transitive, figuratively) To harm the reputation of; to smear or slander.

   Synonym: besmirch

Derived terms

• besmirch

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “smirch”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Etymology 2

Meld of smear and chirp

Noun

smirch (plural smirches)

1. A chirp of radiation power from an astronomical body that has a smeared appearance on its plot in the time-frequency plane (usually associated with massive bodies orbiting supermassive black holes)
   • 2003, B. S. Sathyaprakash, BF Schutz, "Templates for stellar mass black holes falling into supermassive black holes", Classical and Quantum Gravity, volume 20, no. 10

     The strain h(t) produced by a smirch in LISA is given by h(t) = ?-A(t)cos[(t) + ?(t)]

   • 2005, John M. T. Thompson, Advances in Astronomy: From the Big Bang to the Solar System, page 133, ?ISBN.

     By observing a smirch, LISA offers a unique opportunity to directly map the spacetime geometry around the central object and test whether or not this structure is in accordance with the expectations of general realtivity.

Anagrams

• chirms, chrism

English

Etymology

Uncertain. Perhaps a blend of blot +? botch.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bl?t?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bl?t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Noun

blotch (plural blotches)

1. An uneven patch of color or discoloration.
   • 1711, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator, London: J. & R. Tonson, 12th edition, Volume I, No. 16, p. 68,^[1]

     […] in healing those Blotches and Tumours which break out in the body […]

   • 1768, Laurence Sterne, Sermon VI in The Sermons of Mr. Yorick, London: T. Becket & P.A. De Hondt, Volume 3, pp. 182-183,^[2]

     Since the day in which this reformation began, by how many strange and critical turns has it been perfected and handed down, if not, entirely without spot or wrinkle,—at least, without great blotches or marks of anility.

   • 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book II, Chapter 2,^[3]

     Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer than the limbs of infancy; […] it clothed the rough turnip-field with whiteness, and made the sheep look like dark blotches;

   • 1921, Wallace Stevens, Sur Ma Guzzla Gracile, Palace of the Babies, in Poetry, Volume 19, No. 1,^[4]

     The disbeliever walked the moonlit place,

     Outside the gates of hammered serafin,

     Observing the moon-blotches on the walls.

2. An irregularly shaped area.
   • 1923, Willa Cather, One of Ours, Book One, Chapter 5,^[5]

     His shirt showed big blotches of moisture, and the sweat was rolling in clear drops along the creases in his brown neck.
3. (figuratively) Imperfection; blemish on one’s reputation, stain.
   • 1921, Warren G. Harding, Inaugural address, in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States: from George Washington to Barack Obama, Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1989,^[6]

     There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

4. Any of various crop diseases that cause the plant to form spots.
5. A bright or dark spot on old film caused by dirt and loss of the gelatin covering the film, due to age and poor film quality.
6. A dark spot on the skin; a pustule.
7. (slang) Blotting paper.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

blotch (third-person singular simple present blotches, present participle blotching, simple past and past participle blotched)

1. (transitive) To mark with blotches.
   • 1770, Arthur Young, A Six Months Tour through the North of England, London: W. Strahan, Volume 2, p. 258,^[7]

     Upon the whole, the spirit and relief of the figures, with the strength of the colouring, render it a most noble picture; and it is not done in the coarse blotching stile, so common to the pieces which pass under the name of Bassan.

   • 1860, W. R. Tymms, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times, London: Day & Son, Chapter 40, p. 84,^[8]

     A straight-edge is placed upon the chalk lines, with the edge next the line slightly raised, and the brush, well filled with colour, drawn along it, just touching the wall, the pressure being never increased, and the brush refilled whenever it is near failing; but great care must be taken that it be not too full, as in that case it will be apt to blotch the line, or drop the colour upon the lower portions of the wall.

   • 1914, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear, Part 1, Chapter 4,^[9]

     Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars, weather-stained and lichen-blotched bearing upon their summits a shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of Birlstone.

   • 1918, D. H. Lawrence, Parliament Hill in the Evening in New Poems,^[10]

     The houses fade in a melt of mist

     Blotching the thick, soiled air

     With reddish places that still resist

     The Night’s slow care.

   • 1934, Sinclair Lewis, Work of Art, Chapter 1,^[11]

     His strong skin was of the Norse snow-fed pallor that no sun ever tanned, no adolescence ever blotched.
2. (intransitive) To develop blotches, to become blotchy.
   • 1878, Arthur Morecamp (pseudonym of Thomas Pilgrim), Live Boys; or, Charley and Nasho in Texas, Boston: Lee & Shepard, Chapter 17, p. 166,^[12]

     […] when a man is going to drive cattle out of the county he has to put a road-brand on them […] It is generally made of letters or figures, or something that won’t cross lines, because where they cross they are apt to blotch and then it’s hard to tell what the brand is and who the animal belongs to.

Derived terms

• blotched (adjective)