What does smeared mean?
Smeared means spread, daubed, or marked with a thin and usually uneven layer of a substance. The word is especially common when describing food, paint, grease, dirt, or moisture that has been rubbed across a surface: toast smeared with butter, a table smeared with paint, or a window smeared with grime. It can also describe an image or view that has been made indistinct, as when a dirty windscreen smears the traffic beyond it. As an adjective, smeared describes a surface that has been covered or marked in this way. The word carries a strong physical association with rubbing or spreading matter and often implies an uneven, messy, or obscured result. It is standard in both British and American English and is useful where a more specific expression such as spread, daubed, blotted, or smeared across may otherwise be needed.
To spread a substance thinly and unevenly over a surface, or to cover a surface with a thin layer of something.
"She smeared the peanut butter over the bread."
Often used with food, paint, grease, dirt, or another substance that can be rubbed across a surface.
Covered or marked with a thin layer of something; made indistinct by spreading or blurring.
"The camera captured a smeared image of the moving runners."
Commonly used predicatively, especially for a dirty, marked, or blurred surface.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does smeared come from?
Smeared is the past tense and past participle of smear, with the usual English formation in -ed. The exact historical origin of smear is not sufficiently certain to describe in detail without qualification, although the modern family belongs to native English vocabulary.
Related word forms
How smeared is actually used
The verb is commonly transitive, especially with food, dirt, paint, or grease as the object. The adjective is usually used predicatively, as in 'the window was smeared,' or attributively when describing a visibly marked surface.