sb. Also smeuce, smewse, -ss, smu(i)ce, smuse, etc. [Alteration of MEUSE sb.] A hole in a hedge, wall, etc.: see MEUSE sb. and cf. SMOOT sb.1
A common dialect form, esp. in N. Midland counties.
1819. in C. W. Hatfield, Hist. Notices Doncaster (1866), I. 70. By the aid of his dark lantern he knew every smeuce in Wharncliffe or Tankersley parks.
1870. E. Peacock, Ralf Skirl., I. 255. Well, there was a smuice through the hedge just again’ where I was stan’in’.
1883. Pennell-Elmhirst, Cream Leicestersh., 304. There was only one hole—and that a mere smeuse—in the next blackthorn wall.
Hence Smeuse v. = MEUSE v.
1851. R. Hill, in Gosse, Nat. Jamaica, 388. The terrier … smuicing it under the brushwood.
1862. Whyte-Melville, Inside Bar, x. The hounds threw their tongues merrily enough, when they were ‘smeusing’ through a fence.
