Smite (pronounced smahyt)
(1) To strike or hit hard, with or as with the hand, a stick, or other weapon; to deliver or deal (a blow, hit etc) by striking hard.
(2) As acts of God, to strike down, injure, or slay (influenced by the use of the word in biblical translations); to kill or injure by the exercise of divine power.
(3) To afflict or attack with deadly or disastrous effect; violently to kill; to slay.
(4) In military conflict, to put to rout in battle; to overthrow.
(5) To afflict; to chasten; to punish.
(6) To feel mentally or morally afflicted with a sudden pang.
(7) Figuratively (now (as smitten) used only in passive), to strike with love or infatuation; to affect suddenly and strongly with a specified feeling; to impress favorably; charm; enamor.
Pre 900: From the Middle English smiten (to daub, smear, smudge; soil, defile, pollute) from the Old English smītan from the Proto-Germanic smītaną (to sling; throw), from the primitive Indo-European smeyd- (to smear, whisk, strike, rub). It was cognate with Saterland Frisian smiete (to throw, toss), the West Frisian smite (to throw), the Low German smieten (to throw, chuck, toss), the Dutch smijten (to fling, hurl, throw), the Middle Low German besmitten (to soil, sully), the German schmeißen (schmeissen) (to fling, throw), the Danish smide (to throw) and the Gothic bismeitan (to besmear, anoint). The alternative spelling smight is long obsolete. Smite & smiting are nouns & verbs, smited (smit is archaic except in poetic use) & smote are verbs (the latter an adjective in Middle English), smiter is a noun and smitten is an adjective & verb; the (rare) noun plural is smites.
It
varies with the translation but there’s much smiting in the Bible, most
versions having well over a hundred instances including:
And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them (Deuteronomy 7:2)
And I will smite the inhabitants of this city,
both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence. (Jeremiah 21:6)
And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have
pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that
are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the LORD that smiteth.
(Ezekiel 7:9)
In its original sense (daub, smear, smudge etc), smite is close to obsolete. In the late sense of “strike”, it’s rare except in Biblical scholarship, long supplanted in English by an array of synonyms including afflict, knock, hit, chasten, chastise, sock, defeat, visit, attack, buffet, dash, swat, smack, slap, wallop, strike, clobber, blast, whack & belt. A noun form is smiter, the other verbs being smote, smit, smitten & smiting, all obsolete except smitten which has survived in a poetic niche, usually to describe the first, fine, careless rapture of love.
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