WORD OF THE DAY: BESMIRCH
verb|bih-SMERCH
What It Means
To besmirch the reputation, name, honor, etc. of someone or something is to cause harm or damage to it.
// The allegations have besmirched the company’s reputation.
Examples of BESMIRCH
“… in 1895, a ruthless public smear campaign hinging on [Oscar] Wilde’s queerness led to the author’s imprisonment, outing, and eventual exile. … Famously, the British press conspired to draw the dramatist’s name through the mud, besmirching his literary legacy for generations to follow.” — Brittany Allen, LitHub.com, 20 Oct. 2025
Did You Know?
The prefix be- has several applications in English; in the case of besmirch, it means “to make or cause to be.” But what does smirch itself mean? Since the 1400s, smirch has been used as a verb meaning “to make dirty, stained, or discolored.” Besmirch joined English in the early 1600s, and today smirch and besmirch are both used when something—and especially something abstract, like a reputation—is being figuratively sullied, i.e., damaged or harmed. Besmirch isn’t unique in its journey; English has a history of attaching be- to existing verbs to form synonyms. For example, befriend combines be- in its “to make or cause to be” sense with the verb friend, meaning “to act as the friend of.” Befuddle combines be- in its “thoroughly” sense with fuddle, meaning “to stupefy with or as if with drink.” And befog combines be- in its “to provide or cover with” sense with fog, meaning “to cover with or as if with fog.”
Merriam Webster Dictionary
