Also 6 smutche, 7 smuch. [Of uncertain origin; related in some way to SMUDGE, which is recorded earlier as a vb. though much later as a sb. More recent forms are SMOOCH sb. and SMOUCH sb.4.]
1. A black or dirty mark; a stain; a smudge.
1530. Palsgr., 272/1. Smutche on ones face, barboyllement.
1637. Dow, Answ. H. Burton, 125. Though it bee not needfull to wipe off every smutch.
1652. Crashaw, Wks. (1904), 360. Those durty smutches, wch their faire fronts wore.
1784. Cowper, Task, IV. 608. The palm is hardly clean—But here and there an ugly smutch appears.
1844. Lowell, Hunger & Cold, v. He recks not a bloody smutch On his gold.
1879. G. Macdonald, P. Faber, II. xiii. 256. He in whose eyes even a smutch on her face would have lowered a woman.
b. fig. A moral stain.
1648. Earl Westmoreland, Otia Sacra (1879), 15. Why should not our Souls, which before did lye
1688. Bunyan, Solomon’s Temple, xxxiii. Hence the word of God is compared to a glass,… by which we see … our smutches.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 8 Nov., 5/1. The work of cleansing the city from the smutch of Croker and his fellow-ruffians.
c. A slight mark or indication; semblance; also, a slight or light touch.
1776. Burke, Corr. (1844), II. 98. Without a shadow, a relish, a smutch, a tinge,… of anger.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, V. 506. I never envied Graham his breadth of style, Which gives you, with a random smutch or two,… Such delicate perspectives of full life.
2. Soot, smut, grime, dirt.
1790. Cowper, Odyss., XVIII. 34. Collied with chimney smutch! Ibid. (1790), Iliad, XVIII. 513. His arms and brawny neck Purified, and his shaggy breast from smutch.
1890. R. Bridges, Shorter Poems, III. 13. The soil, the smutch the toil and ache and wear.
3. attrib., as smutch box, pan.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 145/1. Stainshall, of some called a Smuch Box; it is a Tin with a bottom and three sides, in which Oil Pencils are put with their points in Oil to keep them from drying.
c. 1896. Rowney’s Price List, 20. Oil Slant and Smutch Pan.
