besmirch

Other forms of besmirch

past tense

besmirched·

present participle

besmirching·

third person

besmirches·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about besmirch

What does besmirch mean?

besmirch means "charge falsely or with malicious intent; attack the good name and reputation of someone". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in besmirch?

besmirch has 2 syllables: be-smirch. The stress falls on "smirch".

What is another word for besmirch?

Close synonyms include defame, slander, smirch, asperse, denigrate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is besmirch a common word?

besmirch is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.