different between spatter vs smear

English

Etymology

Probably from Middle Low German or Dutch spatten (“to spout, burst”) +? -er (frequentative suffix). Related to spit (“saliva”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?spæt?/
• Rhymes: -æt?(r)

Verb

spatter (third-person singular simple present spatters, present participle spattering, simple past and past participle spattered)

1. (transitive) To splash (someone or something) with small droplets.
   • c. 1611, George Chapman (translator), The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets, London: Nathaniell Butter, Book 20, p. 286,^[1]

     His axel-tree, and chariot wheeles, all spatterd with the blood

     Hurl’d from the steeds houes, and the strakes.

   • 1876, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapter ,^[2]

     The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out.

   • 1965, William Trevor, The Boarding House, King Penguin, 1983, Chapter 8, p. 85,^[3]

     He began to blow at the surface of the tea. He blew too hard and the tea spattered the skirt of Nurse Clock’s uniform.

2. (transitive, figuratively) To cover, or lie upon (something) by having been scattered, as if by splashing.
   • 1660, Nathaniel Ingelo, Bentivolio and Urania, London: Richard Marriot, Book 2, pp. 79-80,^[4]

     […] she seem’d to have woven the Rainbow into a loose Robe, which being so rarified that she might be seen through it, and also spatter’d with radiant Jewells in the forms of Starrs […]

   • 1949, Arthur Koestler, Promise and Fulfilment, New York: Macmillan, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 218,^[5]

     The low, whitewashed houses between the red and green acacia trees are spattered with shell-holes […]

   • 1955, Samuel Beckett and Patrick Bowles (translators), Molloy by Samuel Beckett, in Three Novels, London: Calder, 1994, p. 128,^[6]

     The roof’s serrated ridge, the single chimney-stack with its four flues, stood out faintly against the sky spattered with a few dim stars.

   • 1960, Flannery O’Conner, The Violent Bear It Away, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, Chapter 6,^[7]

     Patches of light sifting through them [the trees] spattered the concrete walks with sunshine.

   • 1996, Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Englishman’s Boy, New York: Anchor, Chapter 19, p. 178,^[8]

     Then they began to climb, steering to open uplands spattered with yellow cinquefoil […]

3. (transitive) To distribute (a liquid) by sprinkling; to sprinkle around.
   • 1720, Alexander Pope (translator), The Iliad of Homer, London: Bernard Lintott, Volume 6, Book 22, lines 92-97, p. 7,^[9]

     Perhaps ev’n I, reserv’d by angry Fate

     The last sad Relick of my ruin’d State,

     (Dire Pomp of sov’reign Wretchedness!) must fall,

     And stain the Pavement of my regal Hall;

     Where famish’d Dogs, late Guardians of my Door,

     Shall lick their mangled Master’s spatter’d Gore.

   • 1877, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Harold, London: Henry S. King, Act II, Scene 2, p. 70,^[10]

     O God, that I were in some wide field

     With nothing but my battle-axe and him

     To spatter his brains!

   • 1989, David Foster Wallace, Girl with Curious Hair, “Westward the course of empire takes its way,”^[11]

     Streaks of DeHaven’s real face can be seen through the trademark face as the clown slams the hood shut in the spattered rain.

4. (transitive, figuratively) To send out or disperse (something) as if in droplets.
   • 1922, D. H. Lawrence, Aaron’s Rod, London: Martin Secker, Chapter 12, p. 139,^[12]

     The cabman spattered his few words of English.

   • 1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel, New York: Scribner, Part 1, Chapter 8, p. 74,^[13]

     […] they had seen him, at the sound of the alarm, rush like a madman from his window in Gant’s shop, leaving the spattered fragments of a watch upon his desk […]

   • 1945, Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, New York: New Directions, “The Soul of Anaesthesia,” pp. 88-89,^[14]

     […] a man with a machine gun sits in a cage suspended from the ceiling and moving like a trolley spatters bullets into the cells.

5. (intransitive) To send out small droplets; to splash in small droplets (on or against something).
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 9, lines 564-567,^[15]

     they fondly thinking to allay

     Thir appetite with gust, instead of Fruit

     Chewd bitter Ashes, which th’ offended taste

     With spattering noise rejected:

   • 1956, Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander, New York: Hill and Wang, 1993, Chapter 8, p. 374,^[16]

     Where the headquarters tent sags, water drips down and spatters on the table.

   • 1990, Edna O’Brien, “‘Oft in the Stilly Night’” in Lantern Slides, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, p. 17,^[17]

     Later, the two priests left together, […] their hoods pulled up because it had begun to spatter with rain.

   • 1994, Paul Theroux, Millroy the Magician, New York: Random House, Chapter 25, p. 220,^[18]

     Most mornings he roasted lamb, turning it on a spit, where it spattered and dripped […]

6. (obsolete, transitive, figuratively) To injure by aspersion; to defame.
   • 1647, John Hall, “A Genethliacon to the Infant Muse of his dearest Friend” in Poems, London: J. Rothwell,^[19]

     Let envy spatter what it can,

     This Embryon will prove a man.

   • 1728, John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera, Dublin: George Risk et al., Act II, Scene 13, “Good-morrow, Gossip Joan,” p. 42,^[20]

     Why how now, Madam Flirt?

     If you thus must chatter;

     And are for flinging Dirt,

     Let’s try who best can spatter;

   • 1770, George Saville Carey, “To a Friend” in Analects in Verse and Prose, London: P. Shatwell et al., Volume 2, p. 171,^[21]

     I Wrote a letter long ago,

     But did not like it, you must know,

     So rather chose to take my time,

     And write my own defence in rhime,

     Though not in your be-crabbed stile,

     To spatter, threaten, and revile;

   • 1793, Charles Dibdin, The Younger Brother, London: for the author, Volume 3, Chapter 9, p. 143,^[22]

     […] there is nothing but may be represented upon some principle or other apparently worthy, without the wretched necessity of having recourse to spatter and vilify others.

Synonyms

• (cover or lie upon by having been scattered): strew

See also

• splatter

Translations

Noun

spatter (plural spatters)

1. A spray or shower of droplets hitting a surface.
   • 1763, Richard Bentley, Patriotism, a Mock-Heroic, London: M. Hinxman, Canto 5, pp. 65-66,^[23]

     As a rough Water-Dog, New-England’s Breed,

     Fresh plaister’d from some Pond with Mud and Weed,

     Round from his Fleece the dirty Puddle shakes

     Rejoicing in the Spatter that he makes:—

   • 1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, Part 5, Chapter 1,^[24]

     Ivar turned the mare and urged her into a sliding trot. Her feet sent back a continual spatter of mud.

   • 1998, Michael Cunningham, The Hours, New York: Picador, p. 15,^[25]

     She crosses the plaza, receives a quick spatter from the fountain […]

2. A spot or spots of a substance spattered on a surface.

   There was what looked like a spatter of blood on one wall.

   • 1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Chapter 13,^[26]

     […] I groped from step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with my pocket-handkerchief.

   • 1995, Philip Pullman, Northern Lights (The Golden Compass), New York: Knopf, 2003, Part 3, Chapter 19, p. 286,^[27]

     […] they led the way in through the huge arch, over the icy ground that was filthy with the spatter of the birds.

3. The sound of droplets hitting a surface.
   • 1917, Hugh Walpole, The Green Mirror, New York: George H. Doran, Book 3, Chapter 3, p. 344,^[28]

     As Henry lay awake that first night the hiss and spatter of the rain against his window seemed to have a personal grudge against him.

4. (figuratively) A burst or series of sounds resembling the sound of droplets hitting a surface.
   • 1904, Joseph Conrad, Nostromo, Chapter 8,^[29]

     [Father Roman] had shriven many simple souls on the battlefields of the Republic, kneeling by the dying on hillsides, in the long grass, in the gloom of the forests, to hear the last confession with the smell of gunpowder smoke in his nostrils, the rattle of muskets, the hum and spatter of bullets in his ears.

   • 1919, Henry Blake Fuller, Bertram Cope’s Year, Chapter 32,^[30]

     The rapid handing out of the diplomas brought frequent applause—bits, spatters, volleys, as the case might be.

   • 1952, John Steinbeck, East of Eden, New York: Penguin, 1981, Chapter 48, p. 606,^[31]

     He went through the darkened parlor with its low early evening spatter of conversation.

   • 1964, James Baldwin, “Nothing Personal” in Collected Essays, New York: Library of America, 1998, p. 692,^[32]

     […] punctuated by the roar of great automobiles, overtaking gangsters, the spatter of tommy-guns mowing them down […]

5. (figuratively) A collection of objects scattered like droplets splashed onto a surface.
   • 1988, Don DeLillo, Libra, New York: Viking, Part 2, “12 August,” p. 270,^[33]

     The attendant had a droopy lower lip, a rust-tone complexion with a spatter of freckles across the cheekbones […]

   • 2001, Nadine Gordimer, The Pickup, Penguin, 2002, p. 18,^[34]

     It was untidy; the quarters of someone not used to looking after herself; to seat himself he removed the stained cup and plate and a spatter of envelopes, sheets of opened letters, withered apple-peel, old Sunday paper, from a chair.

Derived terms

• bespatter
• spattery

Anagrams

• PERSTAT, Prattes, p'taters, partest, patters, perstat, tapster, trap set, trapset

English

Etymology

From Middle English smeren, smerien, from Old English smerian, smyrian, smierwan (“to anoint or rub with grease, oil, etc.”), from Proto-Germanic *smirwijan?. Cognate with Saterland Frisian smeere, Dutch smeren, Low German smeren, German schmieren.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: smî, IPA^(key): /sm??/
• (US) enPR: smîr, IPA^(key): /smi?/, IPA^(key): /sm??/
• Rhymes: -??(r)

Verb

smear (third-person singular simple present smears, present participle smearing, simple past and past participle smeared)

1. (transitive) To spread (a substance, especially one that colours or is dirty) across a surface by rubbing.

   Synonyms: apply, daub, plaster, spread

   The artist smeared paint over the canvas in broad strokes.

   • 1776, Oliver Goldsmith, A Survey of Experimental Philosophy, London: T. Carnan and F. Newbery, Chapter 5, p. 74,^[2]

     In general, all bodies whose surfaces are even will […] stick to each other, and if a liquid be smeared over either surface, their cohesion will be still the stronger.

   • 2019, Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, New York: Penguin,^[3]

     Then you would kneel and smear a handful of pomade through my hair, comb it over.

2. (transitive) To cover (a surface with a layer of some substance) by rubbing.

   Synonyms: bedaub, coat, cover, daub, layer, plaster

   She smeared her lips with lipstick.

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act II, Scene 2,^[4]

     Why did you bring these daggers from the place?

     They must lie there: go carry them; and smear

     The sleepy grooms with blood.

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 10 [11], lines 725-727,^[5]

     […] a Vessel of huge bulk,

     Measur’d by Cubit, length, & breadth, and highth,

     Smeard round with Pitch,

   • 1964, Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man, London: Vintage, 2010, p. 53,^[6]

     […] it’s better if we admit to disliking and hating them, than if we try to smear our feelings over with pseudo-liberal sentimentality.

3. (transitive) To make something dirty.

   Synonyms: besmirch, dirty, soil, sully

   • 1583, Arthur Golding (translator), The Sermons of M. John Calvin upon the Fifth Book of Moses called Deuteronomie, London: George Bishop, Sermon 41, p. 246,^[7]

     A man may bee smeared or grimed, and euerie man shall laugh at him, and yet he himselfe shall not perceiue it a whit.

   • 1855, Elizabeth Gaskill, North and South, London: Chapman and Hall, Volume 2, Chapter 11, p. 147,^[8]

     […] she returned, carrying Johnnie, his face all smeared with eating,

   • 2016, Ali Smith, Autumn, Penguin, 2017, Chapter 2,^[9]

     His hands and forearms, his face, his good shirt and suit are smeared from the dustbins and climbing the fence,

4. (transitive) (of a substance, etc.) To make a surface dirty by covering it.
   • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Chapter 21, p. 263,^[10]

     a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin

   • 1982, Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, New York: Knopf, 1989, Chapter 6, p. 168,^[11]

     a rust spot smearing the back of the sink

   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty, New York: Bloomsbury, Chapter 12, p. 323,^[12]

     Wet leaves smeared the pavement.

5. (transitive) To damage someone's reputation by slandering, misrepresenting, or otherwise making false accusations about them, their statements, or their actions.

   Synonyms: badmouth, besmirch, defame, sully, vilify

   The opposition party attempted to smear the candidate by spreading incorrect and unverifiable rumors about their personal behavior.

   • 1914, James Joyce, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, p. 164,^[13]

     May everlasting shame consume

     The memory of those who tried

     To befoul and smear th’ exalted name

     Of one who spurned them in his pride.

   • 1976, Ng?g? wa Thiong'o, “J.M.—A Writer’s Tribute” in Writers in Politics, London: Heinemann, 1981, p. 82,^[14]

     The imperialist foreigners then in the offices of the Nation Newspapers would not allow the African staff to review it. They handled it themselves in order to smear the book and its author and his celebration of Mau Mau resistance.

   • 2018, Richard Powers, The Overstory, New York: Norton, “Neelay Mehta,”^[15]

     They’ll smear him on the country’s dial-up bulletin boards as the worst traitor.

6. (transitive) To cause (something) to be messy or not clear by rubbing and spreading it.

   Synonyms: blur, smudge

   • 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, London: Bradbury and Evans, Chapter 44, p. 457,^[16]

     When she had entered two or three laborious items in the account-book, Jip would walk over the page, wagging his tail, and smear them all out.

   • 1954, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, New York: Ballantine, 1973, Book 2, Chapter 5, p. 419,^[17]

     Then there are four lines smeared so that I can only read went 5 days ago.

   • 2007, Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain, New York: Weinstein Books, Book 1, Chapter 5, p. 56,^[18]

     Bird droppings, smeared by the strokes of rain and dried by the heat, streaked its sides.

7. (intransitive) To become messy or not clear by being spread.

   Synonym: smudge

   The paint is still wet — don't touch it or it will smear.

8. (transitive) To write or draw (something) by spreading a substance on a surface.
   • 1970, Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, New York: Fawcett, 1971, Chapter 2, p. 84,^[19]

     ciphers smeared on the windows of condemned shops

   • 1985, Don DeLillo, White Noise, Penguin, Part 3, Chapter 39, p. 311,^[20]

     smear crude words on the walls in the victim’s own blood as evidence of his final cult-related frenzy

   • 2001, Richard Flanagan, Gould’s Book of Fish, New York: Grove Press, 2002, “The Freshwater Crayfish,”^[21]

     […] she brought a red daubed finger up to my cheek & began to smear markings on my face.

9. (transitive) To cause (something) to be a particular colour by covering with a substance.
   • 1864, Richard F. Burton, A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome, London: Tinsley Brothers, Volume 1, Chapter 3, p. 43,^[22]

     small wooden dolls smeared red as though with blood

   • 1917, William Carlos Williams, “Pastoral” in Al Que Quiere!, Boston: The Four Seas Company, p. 15,^[23]

     the fences and outhouses

     built of barrel-staves

     and parts of boxes, all,

     if I am fortunate,

     smeared a bluish green

   • 1993, Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy, Penguin, 1994, Chapter 2.1, p. 73,^[24]

     They paid the tonga-wallah double his regular fare and smeared his forehead pink and that of his horse green for good measure.

10. (transitive) To rub (a body part, etc.) across a surface.
    • 1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, London: Chapman and Hall, Volume 1, Chapter 3, p. 37,^[25]

      […] he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.

    • 1979, William Styron, Sophie’s Choice, New York: Random House, Chapter 3, p. 58,^[26]

      With the lazy appetite of a calf mooning over a salt lick, he smeared his sizable nose against her face,

    • 2013, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah, New York: Knopf, Chapter 6, p. 74,^[27]

      […] what was it with all those village people who could not stand on their feet without reaching out to smear their palm on a wall?

11. (transitive) To attempt to remove (a substance) from a surface by rubbing.
    • 1839, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, London: Richard Bentley, Volume 1, Chapter 13, p. 198,^[28]

      He had […] a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck, with the long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he spoke:

    • 1926, D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, London: Heinemann, 1955, Chapter 5, p. 85,^[29]

      The boatman rowed short and hard […] , only pausing at moments swiftly to smear the sweat from his face with an old rag he kept on the bench beside him.

    • 1960, Katherine Anne Porter, “Holiday” in Douglas and Sylvia Angus (eds.), Contemporary American Short Stories, New York: Ballantine, 1983, p. 323,^[30]

      […] she stood and shook with silent crying, smearing away her tears with the open palm of her hand.

12. (climbing) To climb without using footholds, using the friction from the shoe to stay on the wall.

Derived terms

• asmear
• besmear
• smearer

Translations

Noun

smear (countable and uncountable, plural smears)

1. A mark made by smearing.

   Synonym: streak

   This detergent cleans windows without leaving smears.

   • 1886, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, London: Smith, Elder, Volume 2, Chapter 8, p. 108,^[31]

     A smear of decisive lead-coloured paint had been laid on to obliterate Henchard’s name, though its letters dimly loomed through like ships in a fog.

   • 1933, Robert Byron, First Russia, Then Tibet, London: Macmillan, Part 2, Chapter 8,^[32]

     Vast avalanches had left their dirty smears on the opposing slopes,

   • 1952, Nevil Shute, The Far Country, London: Heinemann, Chapter 2,^[33]

     she bought a couple of rolls filled with a thin smear of potted meat for her breakfast

   • 2005, John Banville, The Sea, London: Picador, Part 2, p. 228,^[34]

     I could see the roofs of the town on the horizon, and farther off and higher up, a tiny silver ship propped motionless on a smear of pale sea.

2. (countable, uncountable) A false or unsupported, malicious statement intended to injure a person's reputation.

   Synonyms: calumny, slander, slur, mudslinging

   • 1752, Theophilus Cibber, A Lick at a Liar, London: R. Griffiths, p. 7,^[35]

     I should have held him quite beneath my Notice, as is all he utters, but that the Appetite of Slander, in many, is too predominant; and, ’tis possible, when the filthiest Fellow throws a Profusion of Dirt, some may chance to stick, if not timely thrown off; I shall endeavour therefore, to wipe away the sooty Smears of this Chimney-sweeper, by relating a simple Fact, which will, I flatter myself, amply confute the malicious Tales of this unprovoked, rancorous Mortal:
3. (biology) A preparation to be examined under a microscope, made by spreading a thin layer of a substance (such as blood, bacterial culture) on a slide.

   Synonym: squash

4. (medicine) A Pap smear (screening test for cervical cancer).

   Synonyms: cervical smear, Pap test

   I'm going to the doctor's this afternoon for a smear.

5. (radio, television, uncountable) Any of various forms of distortion that make a signal harder to see or hear.
   • 1954, Radio & Television News: Radio-electronic engineering section

     In television terms, a certain amount of smear, ringing, and anticipatory overshoot are indigenous to VSB transmission.

   • 1972, Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports

     Results show the reduction in intelligibility produced by changing the filter condition was much greater than reductions caused by altering smear duration.

6. (climbing) A maneuver in which the shoe is placed onto the holdless rock, and the friction from the shoe keeps it in contact
7. (music) A rough glissando in jazz music.

Derived terms

• cervical smear
• smear campaign
• smear case
• smeary

Translations

References

Anagrams

• MASER, Mares, Marse, mares, marse, maser, mears, rames, reams