Crossword clues for besmirch
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Besmirch \Be*smirch"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Besmirched; p. pr.
& vb. n. Besmirching.]
To smirch or soil; to discolor; to obscure. Hence: To
dishonor; to sully.
--Shak.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context transitive English) To make dirty; to soil. 2 (context transitive English) To tarnish something, especially someone's reputation; to debase.
WordNet
v. charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone; "The journalists have defamed me!" "The article in the paper sullied my reputation" [syn: defame, slander, smirch, asperse, denigrate, calumniate, smear, sully]
smear so as to make dirty or stained [syn: smirch]
Usage examples of "besmirch".
Duc de Marny, a feeble old man now, almost a dotard whose hitherto spotless blason, the young Vicomte, his son, was doing his best to besmirch.
Blumenthal rearranges facts and besmirches the character of his fellow journalists.
Mark Antony: he passed invalid laws, blocked the Forum with armed troops, forged decrees, squandered the public moneys, sold kingdoms, citizenships and tax exemptions, besmirched the courts, introduced bands of brigands into the temple of Concord, massacred centurions and troops at and near Brundisium, and threatened to kill anyone who stood up to him.
Master Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership.
Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies.
There would be no mercy for a girl who would wantonly kill her own father, and afterwards besmirch his reputation in an attempt to save herself from prison.
In that both of us were rather heavily besmirched with fresh blood as a result of our unexpected adventure it was necessary for us to obtain voluminous cloaks, which we procured easily enough by smashing a shop window in a more respectable district on our way back to the West End.
England is being besmirched by a blackmailer and only I can stop a disastrous scandal.
His hands were tied behind him and a white cloth, hideously besmirched, concealed his head, or rather the place where his head had been.
At the present instant one of the most revered names in England is being besmirched by a blackmailer and only I can stop a disastrous scandal.
Was he too young and hotheaded to realise that besmirching Arthur would also mean disinheriting himself?
Had they sent him in without a sword Sir Guy might still have slain him without besmirching his knightly honor, for such were the laws of the Great Tourney.
Now it rose before him so blackened and besmirched that he thought of it only with anger and disgust.
In frustration, Jerusha grabbed at the besmirched mission dresses, as if to take them home with her, away from the contaminated waterfront, but Aunty Mele held onto them grimly, saying, "Hale Wahine!
The German luna seemed rather bigger to Kamejiro than he did to Yoriko, so on his feverish bed the little laborer worked out an alternative plot that would both humiliate the luna and restore his own besmirched honor.