Smack

How to spell smack

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce smack

What does smack mean?

1. verbTo strike someone or something sharply with the flat of the hand.
2. nounA sharp blow or slap delivered with the flat of the hand.
3. nounA loud, hearty kiss.
4. verbTo have a faint suggestion or trace of a particular quality.

Smack in a sentence

• verb

  The toddler tried to smack the table in frustration.

• noun

  The ball hit the window with a loud smack.

• noun

  She planted a big smack on the baby's cheek.

• verb

  The sudden promotion seemed to smack of favouritism.

• verb

  He let the screen door smack shut behind him.

• noun

  He gave the stubborn lid a firm smack to loosen it.

Where does smack come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Smack traces back to the Middle English smak and ultimately to a Germanic root that imitated a sharp slapping or smacking sound, with close cousins in Middle Dutch smacken and Low German smacken, both meaning to strike or to clap together noisily. Because the word began life as an echo of the noise itself, like 'crack' or 'snap', its spelling has stayed pleasingly simple and direct. The sense of striking with the flat of the hand was joined early by the related idea of bringing the lips together loudly, giving us the 'smack' of a noisy kiss. A separate strand, the meaning 'a faint taste or trace of something', comes from a different but related Old English word smaec meaning flavour, which is why we still say a remark can 'smack of' arrogance. The two strands merged in spelling and now share one short, blunt form that sounds very much like what it describes.

How the word is built

• smack (single root of imitative origin, no prefix or suffix)