smart

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
7
Words With Friends
8
Letters
5
Pronunciation
/smɑɹt/
See all 2 pronunciations
/smɑɹt/ · /smɑːt/

Definition of smart

25 senses · 4 parts of speech · etymology included

verb

  1. (intransitive)To hurt or sting.
    “After being hit with a pitch, the batter exclaimed "Ouch, my arm smarts!"”
    “He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said, "I'll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait waistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What's wrong with my face? It feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully."”
    “When the thrashing stopped, Fina used the pipe to roll the first woman's corpse over. She bent down, feeling a curious distance between the sudden serenity in her mind and the actions of her limbs, and beat the flames off the jacket with her bare hands. They were sooty and smarting as she used them to pry the garment off the woman's slack shoulders, and threw it over her own.”
See all 25 definitions

verb

  1. (intransitive)To hurt or sting.
    “After being hit with a pitch, the batter exclaimed "Ouch, my arm smarts!"”
    “He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said, "I'll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait waistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What's wrong with my face? It feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully."”
    “When the thrashing stopped, Fina used the pipe to roll the first woman's corpse over. She bent down, feeling a curious distance between the sudden serenity in her mind and the actions of her limbs, and beat the flames off the jacket with her bare hands. They were sooty and smarting as she used them to pry the garment off the woman's slack shoulders, and threw it over her own.”
  2. (transitive)To cause a smart or sting in.
    “A goad that […] smarts the flesh.”
  3. (intransitive)To feel a pungent pain of mind; to feel sharp pain or grief; to be punished severely; to feel the sting of evil.
    “You think this cruel? take it for a rule, / No creature ſmarts ſo little as a Fool.”
    “He that is ſurety for a ſtranger ſhall ſmart for it.”
    “Meanvvhile the Abate exulted in ſucceſsful vengeance, and the marquis ſmarted beneath the ſtings of diſappointment.”
    “Tiresias. I say that you are living with your next of kin in unimagined shame. Oedipus. Do you think you can say such things and never smart for it? Tiresias. Yes, if there be strength in truth.”

adj

  1. Exhibiting social ability or cleverness.
    “I always preferred the church, and I still do. But that was not smart enough for my family. They recommended the army. That was a great deal too smart for me.”
  2. (informal)Exhibiting intellectual knowledge, such as that found in books.
  3. (in-compounds, often)Equipped with intelligent behaviour (digital/computer technology).
    “smart car”
    “smartcard”
    “smartphone”
    ““Imagine this,” says an advertising consultant named Barry Lowenthal. “I’m a smart toaster, and I’m collecting data on how many times the toaster is used.””
  4. Good-looking; well dressed; fine; fashionable.
    “a smart outfit”
    “You look smart in that business suit.”
  5. Cleverly shrewd and humorous in a way that may be rude and disrespectful.
    “He became tired of his girlfriend's smart remarks.”
    “Don't get smart with me!”
    “Who, for the poor renown of being smart / Would leave a sting within a brother's heart?”
    “I played a sentence or two at my butt, which I thought very smart, when my ill genius, who I verily believed inspired him purely for my destruction, suggested to him such a reply”
    “The clerk gave Mr. Carlyle a knowing look, as of one smart man who will be appreciated by another.”
  6. Sudden and intense.
    “smart skirmishes, in which many fell”
    “There is a smart shower at 5 P.M., and in the midst of it a hummingbird is busy about the flowers in the garden, unmindful of it, though you would think that each big drop that struck him would be a serious accident.”
  7. Causing sharp pain; stinging.
    “How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience.”
  8. Sharp; keen; poignant.
    “a smart pain”
  9. (Southern-US, dated)Intense in feeling; painful. Used usually with the adverb intensifier right.
    “He raised his voice; it hurt her feelings right smart.”
    “That cast on his leg chaffs him right smart.”
  10. (archaic)Efficient; vigorous; brilliant.
    “The stars shine smarter.”
  11. (archaic)Pretentious; showy; spruce.
    “a smart gown”
  12. (archaic)Brisk; fresh.
    “a smart breeze”
  13. (Appalachia)Hard-working.
  14. (mnemonic, not-comparable)An acronym for remembering desirable characteristics for goal-setting: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timebound. (See SMART criteria on Wikipedia.Wikipedia)
    “Over time, I noticed various exercises I did with Woebot rubbing off in my daily life. Woebot taught me how to set SMART goals — specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-limited.”

noun

  1. A sharp, quick, lively pain; a sting.
    “[…] the bodie had no smart / Of any wound: it was the minde that felt the cruell stings.”
    “If chance some Shepherd with a distant Dart / The Savage wound, he rowzes at the Smart, / He foams, he roars […]”
    “Of course Tommy came to grief, tumbled upon a hornets’ nest and got stung; but being used to woe, he bore the smart manfully […]”
    “The smart of his wounded hand woke Scobie at two in the morning.”
  2. Mental pain or suffering; grief; affliction.
    “Mishaps are maistred by aduice discrete, / And counsell mitigates the greatest smart; / Found neuer help, who neuer would his hurts impart.”
    “But oh why didst thou not stay here below / To bless us with thy heav’n lov’d innocence, […] / To stand ’twixt us and our deserved smart / But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.”
    “I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,—I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart—God knows what its name was,—that tears started to my eyes.”
    “[…] Bertrand said, ‘No, you bloody idiot, do you think I drink this? I want mineral water.’ The girl recoiled for just a second at the smart of his tone […] and then apologized with steely insincerity.”
  3. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping)Clipping of smart money.
  4. (dated, slang)A dandy; one who is smart in dress; one who is brisk, vivacious, or clever.
    “[…] I reſolved to quit all further Converſation vvith Beaus and Smarts of all kinds, […]”
  5. A fan of professional wrestling who is aware of kayfabe and the scripted nature of the competition.
    “wwe's attitude toward hardcore fans is a far cry from what it was during the Monday night wars. Back then, wcw would agonize over its decisions in an attempt to outsmart the “smarts.””
  6. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, uncountable)Acronym of self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology: a monitoring system included in computer HDDs and SSDs in order to detect and report various indicators of drive reliability with the intent of anticipating imminent hardware failures.

name

  1. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of)Acronym of International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers.
  2. A surname.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From Middle English smerten, from Old English *smeortan (“to smart”), from Proto-West Germanic *smertan, from Proto-Germanic *smertaną (“to hurt, ache”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)merd- (“to bite, sting”). Cognate with Scots smert, Dutch smarten, German schmerzen, Danish smerte, Swedish smärta.

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