What is "smear"

Smear \Smear\, n. [OE. smere,. smeoru fat, grease; akin to D. smeer, G. schmeer, OHG. smero, Icel. smj["o]r, Sw. & Dan. sm["o]r butter, Goth. sma['i]r[thorn]r fatness, smarna dung; cf. Lith. smarsas fat. Cf. Smirch.]

1. A fat, oily substance; oinment.
   --Johnson.

2. Hence, a spot made by, or as by, an unctuous or adhesive substance; a blot or blotch; a daub; a stain.

   Slow broke the morn, All damp and rolling vapor, with no sun, But in its place a moving smear of light.
   --Alexander Smith.

Smear \Smear\ (sm[=e]r), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Smeared (sm[=e]rd); p. pr. & vb. n. Smearing.] [OE. smeren, smerien, AS. smierwan, smyrwan, fr. smeoru fat, grease; akin to D. smeren, OHG. smirwen, G. schmieren, Icel. smyrja to anoint. See Smear, n.]

1. To overspread with anything unctuous, viscous, or adhesive; to daub; as, to smear anything with oil. ``Smear the sleepy grooms with blood.''
   --Shak.

2. To soil in any way; to contaminate; to pollute; to stain morally; as, to be smeared with infamy.
   --Shak.

3. To smudge, blur, or render indistinct (writing, pictures, etc.).

4. to vilify (a person); to damage (a person's reputation), especially falsely or by unfair innuendo, and with malicious intent.

"mark or stain left by smearing," 1610s, from smear (v.). Sense of "small quantity prepared for microscopic examination" is from 1903. Meaning "a quantity of cream cheese, etc., smeared on a bagel" is by 1999, from Yiddish shmir. The earliest noun sense in English is "fat, grease, ointment" (c.1200), from Old English had smeoru "fat, grease," cognate with Middle Dutch smere, Dutch smeer, German Schmer "grease, fat" (Yiddish schmir), Danish smør, Swedish smör "butter."

Old English smerian, smierwan "to anoint or rub with grease, oil, etc.," from Proto-Germanic *smerwjan "to spread grease on" (cognates: Old Norse smyrja "to anoint, rub with ointment," Danish smøre, Swedish smörja, Dutch smeren, Old High German smirwen "apply salve, smear," German schmieren "to smear;" Old Norse smör "butter"), from PIE *smeru- "grease" (cognates: Greek myron "unguent, balsam," Old Irish smi(u)r "marrow," Old English smeoru "fat, grease, ointment, tallow, lard, suet," Lithuanian smarsas "fat").\n

\nFigurative sense of "assault a public reputation with unsubstantiated charges" is from 1879. Related: Smeared; smearing. Smear-word, one used regardless of its literal meaning but invested with invective, is from 1938.

n. 1 A mark made by smearing. 2 (context medicine English) A Pap smear. 3 A false attack. 4 (cx climbing English) A maneuver in which the shoe is placed onto the holdless rock, and the friction from the shoe keeps it in contact 5 (cx music English) A rough glissando in jazz music. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To spread (a substance, especially one that colours or is dirty) across a surface by rubbing. 2 (context transitive English) To have a substance smeared on (a surface). 3 (context transitive English) To damage someone's reputation by slandering, misrepresenting, or otherwise making false accusations about an individual, their statements, or their actions. 4 (context intransitive English) To become spread by smearing. 5 (cx climbing English) To climb without using footholds, using the friction from the shoe to stay on the wall.

1. n. slanderous defamation [syn: vilification, malignment]

2. a thin tissue or blood sample spread on a glass slide and stained for cytologic examination and diagnosis under a microscope [syn: cytologic smear, cytosmear]

3. a blemish made by dirt; "he had a smudge on his cheek" [syn: smudge, spot, blot, daub, smirch, slur]

4. an act that brings discredit to the person who does it; "he made a huge blot on his copybook" [syn: blot, smirch, spot, stain]

1. v. stain by smearing or daubing with a dirty substance

2. make a smudge on; soil by smudging [syn: blur, smudge, smutch]

3. cover (a surface) by smearing (a substance) over it; "smear the wall with paint"; "daub the ceiling with plaster" [syn: daub]

4. 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, sully, besmirch]

Smear may refer to:

• A smear test, wherein a sample is smeared over a microscope slide to be studied for any pathology
  • A smear test usually refers to a pap test, that is, a cervical smear
• Smear (card game)
• Smear Lake, a lake in Wisconsin
• Smear campaign, a tactic to undermine an individual or a group
• Smear Campaign (album), an album by Napalm Death
• Pat Smear, the guitarist and actor
• Smear (optics), motion that degrades sharpness, which is generally linear over the integration time
• Colloquial name for a glissando, a glide from one musical pitch to another

Smear (also known as Schmier) is a North-American trick-taking card game of the All Fours group, and a variant of Pitch (Setback). Several slightly different versions are played in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Minnesota, Northern and Central Iowa, Wisconsin and also in Ontario, Canada.

It is highly likely that the name is related to the German word schmieren, which is used in point-trick games such as Skat for the technique of discarding a high-value card on a trick which your partner is winning. The name might perhaps be connected to the fact that a high-scoring card may be discarded in a trick won by the player's partner, like in Pinochle, or even to "smudge," which is the highest bid in some forms of Pitch.

In optics, smear is used to refer to motion that has low temporal frequency relative to the integration/exposure time. This typically results from a relative rate of the image with respect to the detector (e.g., caused by movement in the scene). Smear is typically differentiated from jitter, which has a higher frequency relative to the integration time. Whereas smear refers to a relatively constant rate during the integration/exposure time, jitter refers to a relatively sinusoidal motion during the integration/exposure time.

The equation for the optical Modulation transfer function associated with smear is the standard sinc function associated with an extended sample

$$MTF_{smear}(u) = \frac {sin(\pi \alpha u)} {\pi \alpha u}$$

where u is the spatial frequency and α is the amplitude of the smear in pixels.

Cristian Gheorghiu became famous as an American street artist/ graffiti artist and contemporary painter under the name of Smear in the 2000s. He further rose to prominence in a series of high-profile arrests and subsequent articles on the arrests and on his art which appeared in the Los Angeles Times from 2009 to 2011, followed by television appearances and further media coverage. In 2011 the Los Angeles Times called Smear "a subculture sensation" and his work has appeared in contemporary art galleries, and a solo museum exhibit in 2009. He was also a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed by the L.A. City attorney's office, a lawsuit which largely because of its First Amendment implications has garnered the attention of international media, including the Huffington Post, L.A. Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press.