different between shame vs smirch

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?e?m/
• Rhymes: -e?m

Etymology 1

From Middle English schame, from Old English s?amu, from Proto-Germanic *skam?.

Noun

shame (usually uncountable, plural shames)

1. Uncomfortable or painful feeling due to recognition or consciousness of one's own impropriety or dishonor, or something being exposed that should have been kept private.
2. Something to regret.
   • 1977, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Shame

     And what you do to me is a shame.
3. Reproach incurred or suffered; dishonour; ignominy; derision.

   • […] because ye haue borne the shame of the heathen,

   • 1813, Lord Byron, The Giaour

     And every woe a tear can claim / Except an erring sister's shame.

4. The cause or reason of shame; that which brings reproach and ignominy.

   • guides who are the shame of religion

5. That which is shameful and private, especially private parts.
   • 1611, KJV, Jubilees 3:22:

     And he took fig leaves and sewed them together and made an apron for himself. And he covered his shame.

   • 1991, Martha Graham, Blood Memory, Washington Square Press

     She turns to lift her robe, and lays it across her as though she were revealing her shame, as though she were naked.

Synonyms

• (uncomfortable or painful feeling): dishonor
• (something regrettable): dishonor, humiliation, mortification, pity
• See also: Thesaurus:shame

Antonyms

• (uncomfortable or painful feeling): honor

Derived terms

Translations

Interjection

shame

1. A cry of admonition for the subject of a speech, either to denounce the speaker or to agree with the speaker's denunciation of some person or matter; often used reduplicated, especially in political debates.
   • 1982, "Telecommunications Bill", Hansard

     Mr John Golding: One would not realise that it came from the same Government, because in that letter the Under-Secretary states: "The future of BT's pension scheme is a commercial matter between BT, its workforce, and the trustees of the pensions scheme, and the Government cannot give any guarantees about future pension arrangements."

     Mr. Charles R. Morris: Shame.

   • 1831, The Bristol Job Nott; or, Labouring Man's Friend

     [...] the Duke of Dorset charged in the list with "not known, but supposed forty thousand per year" (charitable supposition) had when formerly in office only about 3 or £4,000, and has not now, nor when the black list was printed, any office whatever — (Much tumult, and cries of "shame" and "doust the liars")

2. (South Africa) Expressing sympathy.

   Shame, you poor thing, you must be cold!

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English schamen, from Old English s?amian, from Proto-West Germanic *skam?n, from Proto-Germanic *skam?n?.

Verb

shame (third-person singular simple present shames, present participle shaming, simple past and past participle shamed)

1. (transitive) To cause to feel shame.

   • Were there but one righteous in the world, he would […] shame the world, and not the world him.

2. To cover with reproach or ignominy; to dishonor; to disgrace.
3. (transitive) To drive or compel by shame.

4. (obsolete, intransitive) To feel shame, be ashamed.
5. (obsolete, transitive) To mock at; to deride.

   • Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.

Synonyms

• (to cause to feel shame): demean, humiliate, insult, mortify

Antonyms

• (to cause to feel shame): honor, dignify

Derived terms

• ashamed
• beshame
• (sense: to cause to feel shame) creep-shame
• name and shame

Translations

References

• shame in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Hames, Shema, ahems, haems, hames, heams

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??(?)t?

Etymology 1

Attested since the 15th century; possibly from Old French esmorcher (“to torture”), from Latin morsus (“bitten”).

Noun

smirch (countable and uncountable, plural smirches)

1. Dirt, or a stain.
   • 1998, Michael Foss, People of the First Crusade, page 6, ?ISBN.

     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. (figuratively) A stain on somebody's reputation.
   • 2008, W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, page 33, ?ISBN.

     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.

Verb

smirch (third-person singular simple present smirches, present participle smirching, simple past and past participle smirched)

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

   Synonyms: besmirch, soil

   • 1600, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act I Scene III, lines 101-04

     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.

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

   Synonym: besmirch

Derived terms

• besmirch

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “smirch”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Etymology 2

Meld of smear and chirp

Noun

smirch (plural smirches)

1. 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)
   • 2003, B. S. Sathyaprakash, BF Schutz, "Templates for stellar mass black holes falling into supermassive black holes", Classical and Quantum Gravity, volume 20, no. 10

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

   • 2005, John M. T. Thompson, Advances in Astronomy: From the Big Bang to the Solar System, page 133, ?ISBN.

     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.

Anagrams

• chirms, chrism