Adjacent Words

Smut definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SMUT, n.
1. A spot made with soot or coal; or the foul matter itself.
2. A foul black substance which forms on corn. Sometimes the whole ear is blasted and converted into smut. This is often the fact with maiz. Smut lessens the value of wheat.
3. Obscene language.
SMUT, v.i. To gather smut; tobe converted into smut.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink [syn: carbon black, lampblack, soot, smut, crock]
2: destructive diseases of plants (especially cereal grasses) caused by fungi that produce black powdery masses of spores
3: any fungus of the order Ustilaginales [syn: smut, smut fungus]
4: an offensive or indecent word or phrase [syn: obscenity, smut, vulgarism, filth, dirty word]
5: creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire [syn: pornography, porno, porn, erotica, smut] v
1: make obscene; "This line in the play smuts the entire act"
2: stain with a dirty substance, such as soot
3: become affected with smut; "the corn smutted and could not be eaten"
4: affect with smut or mildew, as of a crop such as corn

Merriam Webster's

I. verb (smutted; smutting) Etymology: probably alteration of earlier smot to stain, from Middle English smotten; akin to Middle High German smutzen to stain Date: 1587 transitive verb 1. to stain or taint with smut 2. to affect (a crop or plant) with smut intransitive verb to become affected by smut II. noun Date: 1664 1. matter that soils or blackens; specifically a particle of soot 2. any of various destructive diseases especially of cereal grasses caused by parasitic basidiomycetous fungi (order Ustilaginales) and marked by transformation of plant parts into dark masses of spores; also a fungus causing a smut 3. obscene language or matter

Britannica Concise

Disease of cereals, corn, grasses, onion, and sorghum, caused by many species of fungi (see fungus). Spores accumulate in sootlike masses (sori) that form within blisters in seeds, leaves, stems, flower parts, and bulbs. The sori usually break up into a black powder that is readily dispersed by wind. Many smut fungi enter embryos or seedling plants, develop throughout the plant, and appear externally only as the plants near maturity. Other smuts are localized, infecting actively growing tissues. Control includes growing resistant varieties in noninfested soil, treating seeds with fungicide, using disease-free transplants, and destroying infected plants or plant parts before the spores are released.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 a small flake of soot etc. 2 a spot or smudge made by this. 3 obscene or lascivious talk, pictures, or stories. 4 a a fungous disease of cereals in which parts of the ear change to black powder. b any fungus of the order Ustilaginales causing this. --v. (smutted, smutting) 1 tr. mark with smuts. 2 tr. infect (a plant) with smut. 3 intr. (of a plant) contract smut. Phrases and idioms: smut-ball Agriculture grain affected by smut. smut-mill a machine for freeing grain from smut. Derivatives: smutty adj. (smuttier, smuttiest) (esp. in sense 3 of n.). smuttily adv. smuttiness n. Etymology: rel. to LG smutt, MHG smutz(en) etc.: cf. OE smitt(ian) smear, and SMUDGE(1)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Smut Smut, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Smutted; p. pr. & vb. n. Smutting.] 1. To stain or mark with smut; to blacken with coal, soot, or other dirty substance. 2. To taint with mildew, as grain. --Bacon. 3. To blacken; to sully or taint; to tarnish. 4. To clear of smut; as, to smut grain for the mill.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Smut Smut, v. i. 1. To gather smut; to be converted into smut; to become smutted. --Mortimer. 2. To give off smut; to crock.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Smut Smut, n. [Akin to Sw. smuts, Dan. smuds, MHG. smuz, G. schmutz, D. smet a spot or stain, smoddig, smodsig, smodderig, dirty, smodderen to smut; and probably to E. smite. See Smite, v. t., and cf. Smitt, Smutch.] 1. Foul matter, like soot or coal dust; also, a spot or soil made by such matter. 2. (Mining) Bad, soft coal, containing much earthy matter, found in the immediate locality of faults. 3. (Bot.) An affection of cereal grains producing a swelling which is at length resolved into a powdery sooty mass. It is caused by parasitic fungi of the genus Ustilago. Ustilago segetum, or U. Carbo, is the commonest kind; that of Indian corn is Ustilago maydis. 4. Obscene language; ribaldry; obscenity. He does not stand upon decency . . . but will talk smut, though a priest and his mother be in the room. --Addison. Smut mill, a machine for cleansing grain from smut.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Dust Dust, n. [AS. dust; cf. LG. dust, D. duist meal dust, OD. doest, donst, and G. dunst vapor, OHG. tunist, dunist, a blowing, wind, Icel. dust dust, Dan. dyst mill dust; perh. akin to L. fumus smoke, E. fume. ?.] 1. Fine, dry particles of earth or other matter, so comminuted that they may be raised and wafted by the wind; that which is crumbled too minute portions; fine powder; as, clouds of dust; bone dust. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. --Gen. iii. 19. Stop! -- for thy tread is on an empire's dust. --Byron. 2. A single particle of earth or other matter. [R.] ``To touch a dust of England's ground.'' --Shak. 3. The earth, as the resting place of the dead. For now shall sleep in the dust. --Job vii. 21. 4. The earthy remains of bodies once alive; the remains of the human body. And you may carve a shrine about my dust. --Tennyson. 5. Figuratively, a worthless thing. And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust. --Shak. 6. Figuratively, a low or mean condition. [God] raiseth up the poor out of the dust. --1 Sam. ii. 8. 7. Gold dust; hence: (Slang) Coined money; cash. Down with the dust, deposit the cash; pay down the money. [Slang] ``My lord, quoth the king, presently deposit your hundred pounds in gold, or else no going hence all the days of your life. . . . The Abbot down with his dust, and glad he escaped so, returned to Reading.'' --Fuller. Dust brand (Bot.), a fungous plant (Ustilago Carbo); -- called also smut. Gold dust, fine particles of gold, such as are obtained in placer mining; -- often used as money, being transferred by weight. In dust and ashes. See under Ashes. To bite the dust. See under Bite, v. t. To raise, or kick up, dust, to make a commotion. [Colloq.] To throw dust in one's eyes, to mislead; to deceive. [Colloq.]

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(smuts) 1. If you refer to words or pictures that are related to sex as smut, you disapprove of them because you think they are rude and unpleasant and have been said or published just to shock or excite people. ...schoolboy smut. [disapproval] 2. Smut or smuts is dirt such as soot which makes a dirty mark on something. N-UNCOUNT: also N in pl

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. n. 1. Dirt. 2. Blight, blemish, spot, smutch, smudge. 3. Obscenity, ribaldry, smuttiness, nastiness, obscene language. 4. Mildew, blight, dust-brand, burnt corn. II. v. a. 1. Soil, tarnish, sully, taint, stain, blacken, smouch, smudge. 2. Mildew, mould, decay, blight.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Bawdy. Smutty story; an indecent story.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

A copper. A grate. Old iron. The cove was lagged for a smut: the fellow was transported for stealing a copper.

Moby Thesaurus

Rabelaisianism, X-rated movie, air pollution, algae, alluvion, alluvium, ash, ashes, attritus, autophyte, bawdiness, bawdry, bean, bedarken, bedaub, besmear, besmirch, besmutch, besoil, bestain, black, blacken, blackening, blackwash, blast, blight, bloodstain, blot, blotch, blue movie, blur, bracken, bran, brand, brown algae, calx, cancer, canker, carbon, carrion, charcoal, cinder, climber, clinker, coal, coke, conferva, confervoid, coom, cork, corruption, cosmic dust, creeper, crow, crumb, crumble, dab, dandruff, darken, darkening, daub, decay, defile, denigrate, denigration, deposition, deposits, diatom, diluvium, dinge, dirt, dirtiness, dirty, dirty movie, discolor, draff, dregs, dross, dry rot, dust, dust ball, ebon, ebonize, ebony, efflorescence, ember, erotic art, erotic literature, erotographomania, excrement, eyesore, fallout, farina, feces, fern, fescenninity, filings, filth, filthiness, fleck, flick, flour, flyspeck, foul matter, foulness, froth, fruits and vegetables, fucus, fume, fungus, furfur, gangrene, grapevine, green algae, grime, grits, groats, grounds, gulfweed, herb, heterophyte, iconolagny, ink, ivy, jet, kelp, kittens, lava, lees, legume, lentil, lewdness, liana, lichen, lint, liverwort, loess, macula, maculation, macule, mark, meal, melanization, melanize, mess, mildew, mold, moraine, moss, moth, moth and rust, muck, mucus, mud, murk, mushroom, must, nastiness, night, nigrification, nigrify, obscenity, offensiveness, offscum, ordure, oversmoke, parasite, parasitic plant, patch, pea, perthophyte, pest, phytoplankton, pitch, planktonic algae, plant families, pornographic art, pornographic literature, pornographomania, pornography, powder, precipitate, precipitation, puffball, pulse, pus, pussies, putrid matter, raspings, raven, red algae, reek, ribaldry, rockweed, rot, rust, salaciousness, salacity, saprophyte, sargasso, sargassum, sawdust, scoria, scum, scurf, scurrility, scuz, sea lentil, sea moss, sea wrack, seaweed, sediment, settlings, sexploitation, shade, shading, shadow, silt, sinter, skin flick, slag, slime, sloe, slubber, smear, smirch, smirching, smoke, smouch, smudge, smudging, smutch, smutching, smuttiness, snot, soft-core pornography, soil, soilage, soilure, soot, sordes, spatter, speck, speckle, splash, splatter, splotch, spot, stag film, stain, stigma, sublimate, succulent, sullage, sully, taint, tar, tarnish, toadstool, vetch, vileness, vine, worm, wort, wrack