different between smirch vs slur

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

From Middle English sloor (“thin or fluid mud”). Cognate with Middle Low German sluren (“to trail in mud”). Also related to dialectal Norwegian sløra (“to be careless, to scamp, dawdle”), Danish sløre (“to wobble, be loose”) (especially for wheels); compare Old Norse slóðra (“to drag oneself along”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sl??(?)/
• Rhymes: -??(r)

Noun

slur (plural slurs)

1. An insult or slight.

2. (music) A set of notes that are played legato, without separate articulation.
3. (music) The symbol indicating a legato passage, written as an arc over the slurred notes (not to be confused with a tie).

   Coordinate term: tie

4. (obsolete) A trick or deception.
5. In knitting machines, a device for depressing the sinkers successively by passing over them.

Derived terms

• f-slur

Translations

Verb

slur (third-person singular simple present slurs, present participle slurring, simple past and past participle slurred)

1. To insult or slight.
   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, The Marriage of Geraint

     And how men slur him, saying all his force
     Is melted into mere effeminacy?

2. To run together; to articulate poorly.
3. (music) To play legato or without separate articulation; to connect (notes) smoothly.

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

4. To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace.

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

5. To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice.

   • With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes.

6. To cheat, as by sliding a die; to trick.
   • 1662, Samuel Butler, Hudibras

     to slur men of what they fought for

7. (printing, dated) To blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle.

Derived terms

• slur over

Translations

Further reading

• Slur (music) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• URLs, lurs