smirch

noun

1. (archaic, countable, uncountable)Dirt, or a stain.

   “Too often, in the years between 800 and 1050, the everyday sun declined through the smirch of flame and smoke of a monastery or town robbed and burnt.”

2. (archaic, countable, figuratively, uncountable)A stain on somebody's reputation.

   “there were some business transactions which savored of dangerous speculation, if not dishonesty; and around it all lay the smirch of the Freedmen's Bank.”

3. A chirp of radiation power from an astronomical body that has a smeared appearance on its plot in the time-frequency plane (usually associated with massive bodies orbiting supermassive black holes)

   “The strain h(t) produced by a smirch in LISA is given by h(t) = −-A(t)cos[(t) + φ(t)]”

   “By observing a smirch, LISA offers a unique opportunity to directly map the spacetime geometry around the central object and test whether or not this structure is in accordance with the expectations of general realtivity.”

verb

1. (archaic, transitive)To dirty; to make dirty.

   “CELIA. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire, / And with a kind of umber smirch my face; / The like do you; so shall we pass along, / And never stir assailants.”

   “Girls thought that by leaping over the fires without being smirched they made sure of a happy marriage.”

2. (archaic, figuratively, transitive)To harm the reputation of; to smear or slander.