smicker

From Middle English smiker, from Old English smicer, smicor (“beauteous, beautiful, elegant, fair, fine, neat, tasteful”), from Proto-Germanic *smikraz (“fine, elegant, delicate, tender”), from Proto-Indo-European *smēyg- (“small, delicate”), from Proto-Indo-European *smē-, *smey- (“to smear, stroke, wipe, rub”). Cognate with Middle High German smecker (“neat, elegant”), Ancient Greek σμικρός (smikrós), μικρός (mikrós, “small, short”), Lithuanian smeigti (“to lunge, thrust, jab”), Latin mīca (“crumb, morsel, bit”).

For the verb, compare Swedish smickra (“to flatter, coax, wheedle, butter up”), Danish smigre (“to flatter”).

smicker (comparative more smicker, superlative most smicker)

1. Elegant; fine; gay.
   • John Ford

     No, his deep-reaching spirit could not brook
     The fond addiction to such vanity;
     Regardful of his honour he forsook
     The smicker use of court-humanity.

2. Amorous; wanton.
3. Spruce; smart.
   • Lodge

     A smicker boy, a lither swain,
     Heigh ho, a smicker swain,
     That his love was wanton fain, […]

smicker (third-person singular simple present smickers, present participle smickering, simple past and past participle smickered)

1. (intransitive) To look amorously or wantonly

• smickering
• smickly

• Emricks, Remicks