smut

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Middle English smotten (“to defile, debase”),^[2][3][4] a verb recorded from before 1387, and its later form smutten, recorded probably before 1425.^[3][5][6] Barnhart and the Merriam-Webster Unabridged take smut as an alteration of smot,^[3][2] while the OED only compares the two and calls the noun a derivative of the verb, perhaps largely a back-formation from smutty, which is recorded earlier in most senses.^[7] The Middle English verb is related to Middle High German smotzen (“to make dirty”) and smutzen, modern German schmutzen, and to smuz (“grease, dirt”) and German Schmutz (“dirt”),^[5][3][7][8] with Low German smutt beside them;^[9][8] Ayto thinks smut may have been borrowed from the Low German word.^[10] Barnhart traces the group to Proto-Germanic *smutt- and the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *meud- (“moist”),^[3] and the OED to an s- form of the Germanic base of Dutch mot (“drizzle”).^[7] Ayto and the Shorter Oxford see it as one of a loose family of words for dirtying that begin with the letters s and m, with smudge, smirch, smutch and smite, which first meant to smear.^[10][8][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

As smotten, to corrupt or defile: before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon, of foreigners who are ismotted by the wickedness of their neighbours.^[6][7][3]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English verb was moral, "to corrupt, defile", and the literal sense, to blacken with soot or some dirty substance, is first recorded in 1587, with the figurative "to stain with a fault" following in 1601.^[7][3] Farmers used it from 1626 of grain affected by the black fungus,^[7] and the adjective smutty is recorded in that sense in 1597, before the noun.^[3] The noun smut appears in 1664, as a black mark or stain, in Henry More,^[7][3] and in 1665 for the plant disease;^[7] miners used it from 1686 for bad soft coal, and it meant soot from 1693.^[7] The step to obscenity went by way of dirt: smutty meant indecent in Pepys's diary in 1668, when he disliked a new play for being "very smutty",^[3][12] and smut was indecent language in Jeremy Collier's attack on the stage in 1698,^[7][3][13] though Etymonline dates this sense to the 1660s.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave only the senses "a spot made with soot or coal" and blackness on corn, and treated obscenity as a third, figurative sense.^[14] In later slang it also covered pornographic books and pictures.^[13]

Timeline

• before 1387 – as smotten, to corrupt or defile.^[6][7][3]
• 1587 – verb, to blacken or smudge with soot or dirt.^[7][3]
• 1601 – to stain with some fault.^[7]
• 1626 – to affect grain with smut.^[7]
• 1664 – noun, a black mark or stain.^[7][3]
• 1665 – a fungal disease of cereals and other plants.^[7][3]
• 1686 – in coal mining, bad, soft, earthy coal.^[7]
• 1693 – soot or sooty matter.^[7]
• 1698 – indecent or obscene language.^[7][3][13]
• 1722 – verb, to make obscene.^[7]
• 1803 – a particle of soot.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small dark mark or stain, especially one made by soot; a smudge.^[15][2][7]
2. A particle of soot or dirt.^[15][2][7]
3. Obscene or indecent talk, writing or pictures; pornography: The censor cut the smut from the script.^[15][13][7]
4. Any of various fungal diseases of plants, especially cereals, in which the grain is replaced by black powdery spores; also, the fungus causing it.^[15][7][8]
5. (coal mining) Bad, soft, earthy coal.^[7][8]

Verb

1. To mark or blacken with soot or some other dirty substance.^[2][7][15]
2. To affect grain with smut, or of grain, to become affected by it.^[2][7]
3. To sully or taint; to make obscene.^[2][7]

Word family

• smuttily
• smuttiness
• smutty
• antismut
• corn smut
• loose smut

Related words

• smudge
• smirch
• smutch
• smite
• mote
• schmutz

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins