Definition of "smut"

smut

/smʌt/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural smuts
1. (uncountable) Soot.
2. (countable) A flake of ash or soot.
  Quotations
  She reached it soon after half-past two. She found its gloomy nineteenth-century façade, black with the smuts of ninety years, a little daunting, and mounted its broad steps in some trepidation. But she rang the bell hard and knocked firmly.
  1915, Edgar Jepson, “The Reluctant Duke”, in Happy Pollyooly: The Rich Little Poor Girl, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 135
  “You can rely on me!” Varya said, still more earnestly and enthusiastically, still leaning heavily on the counter, noticing briefly and forgetting at once that her bare elbow had crushed a stray smut from the Primus mender's booth.
  1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by Harry Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 56
  “Do I have a smut on my nose, Mr. Donovan? You've been staring at me for a full minute. It's most disconcerting, you know.”
  2012, Kasey Michaels, A Masquerade in the Moonlight
3. (uncountable) Sexually vulgar material; something that is sexual in a dirty way; pornographic material.
4. (uncountable) Obscene language; ribaldry; obscenity.
  Quotations
  He does not stand upon decency […] but will talk smut, though a priest and his mother be in the room.
  1711 June 5 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “FRIDAY, May 25, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 39; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853
5. Any of a range of fungi, mostly Ustilaginomycetes, that cause plant disease in grasses, including cereal crops; the disease so caused.
6. (mining) Bad, soft coal containing earthy matter, found in the immediate locality of faults.
verb
third-person singular simple present smuts, present participle smutting, simple past and past participle smutted
1. (transitive, intransitive) To stain (or be stained) with soot or other dirt.
  Quotations
  it bears a very good Crop , and seldom smuts
  1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], 2nd edition, London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], published 1708
2. (transitive) To taint (grain, etc.) with the smut fungus.
  Quotations
  Mildew also falls upon Corn, and smuts it
  1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]
3. (intransitive) To become tainted by the smut fungus.
  Quotations
  It smutted to a far greater degree than the year before, say three fourths, or more. I obtained but little more than the seed sown, and that was handsome wheat. This failure I imputed to the same supposed cause which operated the last year.
  1836, New England Farmer, volume 14, page 313
4. (transitive) To clear of the smut fungus.