Now U.S. Also smoutch. [? f. SMOUCH sb.2]

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  1.  trans. To acquire dishonestly; to pilfer.

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1826.  Cobbett, Rural Rides (1830), 514. The far greater part of them are … getting or expecting loaves and fishes…. They smouch, or want to smouch, some of the taxes.

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1880.  ‘Mark Twain,’ Tramp Abroad, xxx. 322. Insolent odds and ends smouched from half a dozen learned tongues. Ibid. (1888), in New Princeton Rev., V. 49 (Cent.). The rest of it was smouched from House’s Atlantic paper.

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  2.  intr. To deal unfairly or dishonestly.

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1848.  Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 314. To Smoutch. To gouge; to take unfair advantage. Colloquial in New York.

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