One way to hold this word: a black mark that comes off on whatever it touches. Soot from a coal fire lands on a window ledge, on a shirt, on the end of your nose, and it leaves a smear. Everything else this word does is that same smear put somewhere new — on a field of wheat, where the ears go black and dusty, and on books and jokes, where the dirt is not real but the speaker means it to sound just as real.
From the word’s history
From Middle English smutten, 'to defile, debase', related to German Schmutz, 'filth, dirt'. The word begins at dirtying something, and every later use keeps that.
來自中古英文 smutten（弄髒、玷汙），和德文 Schmutz（髒汙）同源。這個字一開始講的就是「把東西弄髒」，後面的每個用法都還留著這件事。
Wiktionary etymology supplied in this packet (kaikki extract, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:503250317): Middle English smutten “to defile, debase”; cf. German Schmutz, schmutzen; doublet of schmutz.
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。