Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
😣 A sharp pain 🧠 Practical intelligence 🤕 To hurt
to smarts

to smarts

6.1
To feel a sharp pain or feel hurt after criticism
  • verb
  • /smɑrts/
translation icon : dolor
  • After losing the competition, she was smarting from the harsh comments of the judges.

Examples

  • So the group was smarting under that kind of defeat, if you like.

  • Caroline was smarting and and and livid at having been recently described as a as something between a barn actress and Mary Wooster Kroft.

  • He felt himself smarting from her words, which stung more than he expected.

  • Even days later, he was still smarting from the embarrassment of his mistake.

Synonyms

to hurt
vsto smarts
∞ 1.0

Make someone suffer physical or emotional pain

is narrower in meaning and means a sharp pain or upset after criticism or defeat

Compounds

street smarts
  • Informal
6 5.6

Knowing how to stay safe and avoid danger in a city

How Hurt

to agonize
  • US
6 6.8
to hurt
∞ 1.0
to smarts
6.1
to twinge
1 6.0
to ache
25 1.0

Surface Forms

smarts infinitive
smarted past
smarted past participle
smarting present participle
smarts third person singular

Morphology

smarts = smart (transparent) = smart + s

This is the inflected third-person singular form of the verb 'smart'; the meaning is the same as the base verb, so the relation is transparent.

Etymology

Smarts (verb: to hurt) comes from the old English smeart meaning 'to sting' or 'hurt', and we still use it for a sharp physical pain or the sting of bad words, as in 'my knee smarts' or 'he smarts at the insult.'