different between viscous vs smeary

English

Etymology

First attested in 1605. Borrowed from Middle French visqueux and Late Latin visc?sus, from Latin viscum (“birdlime”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?v?s.k?s/
• Homophone: viscus
• Rhymes: -?sk?s

Adjective

viscous (comparative more viscous, superlative most viscous)

1. Having a thick, sticky consistency between solid and liquid.
2. (physics) Of or pertaining to viscosity.

Synonyms

• (having a thick consistency): syrupy, viscid, viscose, thickflowing

Antonyms

• (physics): inviscid

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin visc?sus, from Latin viscum.

Adjective

viscous m (oblique and nominative feminine singular viscouse)

1. viscous (of a liquid, thick; tending to flow slowly)

Descendants

• Middle French: visqueux
  • French: visqueux
  • ? English: viscous

References

• viscous on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub

English

Etymology

From Middle English *smery, *smeri, from Old English smeoruwi? (“fatty, greasy, unctious, smeary”), equivalent to smear +? -y.

Adjective

smeary (comparative more smeary, superlative most smeary)

1. Having or showing smears.

   Synonyms: smeared, smudged, soiled

   • 1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, London: Chapman and Hall, Volume 3, Chapter 4, p. 62,^[1]

     Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had nothing half so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of coffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine, with which it was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in a highly irregular form, I sat at my table […]

   • 1909, Robert W. Service, “The Song of the Mouth-Organ” in Ballads of a Cheechako, Toronto: William Briggs, p. 103,^[2]

     I voice the weary, smeary ones of earth,

     The helots of the sea and of the soil.

   • 1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, 2010, Chapter 7, p. 41,^[3]

     They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered colour plates.

   • 1959, Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan, New York: Random House, 2009, Chapter 5, p. 132,^[4]

     The letters were executed clumsily, with a smeary black kindergarten exuberance.

2. Tending to smear or soil.
   • 1986, Stephen King, It, New York: Signet, 1987, Part 3, Chapter 11, p. 523,^[5]

     […] stamped again and again in smeary red ink that looked like blood, was one word: CANCEL.

3. Having a consistency like grease; covered with such a substance.

   Synonyms: adhesive, greasy, sticky, viscous

   • 1582, Richard Stanyhurst (translator), Thee First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis, Leiden: John Pates, dedicatory epistle,^[6]

     And are there not diuerse skauingers of draftye poëtrye in this oure age, that bast theyre papers wyth smearie larde sauoring al too geather of thee frying pan?

   • 1896, W. S. Gilbert, The Grand Duke, Act I, in The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan, New York: The Modern Library, 1936, p. 675,^[7]

     When your lips are all smeary—like tallow,

     And your tongue is decidedly yallow,

     With a pint of warm oil in your swallow,

     And a pound of tin-tacks in your chest—

Derived terms

• smearily
• smeariness

Anagrams

• Rameys, Ramsey, my arse