smut

1. 1.

   make obscene

   “This line in the play smuts the entire act”

   Broaderchange
2. 2.

   stain with a dirty substance, such as soot

   Broaderstain
3. 3.

   become affected with smut

   “the corn smutted and could not be eaten”

   Broadermold
4. 4.

   affect with smut or mildew, as of a crop such as corn

   Broaderinfect

   farming

Other forms of smut

plural

smuts·

past tense or participle

smutted

present participle

smutting

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 smut

What does smut mean?

smut means "a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink". That is the primary sense; the word has 9 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in smut?

smut has 1 syllable: smut. In IPA it is /ˈsmʌt/.

What is another word for smut?

Close synonyms include carbon black, lampblack, soot, crock, smut fungus. 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 smut a common word?

smut 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.