smittle

English

Etymology

Frequentative from Middle English smitten (“to smear; smudge; stain; taint”), from Old English smittian (“to defile; pollute; befoul”). Cognate with German schmitzen (“to pollute”), Danish smitte (“to infect”). Related also to smite.

Verb

smittle (third-person singular simple present smittles, present participle smittling, simple past and past participle smittled)

  1. (obsolete, Britain, dialectal, transitive) To infect.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for smittle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

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