smudgy

• smudgey

From smudge (“blemish; dense smoke; to obscure by smearing; to stifle”) +‎ -y. (The sense "rainy" is related to dialectal use of smudge to mean drizzling rain.)

smudgy (comparative smudgier, superlative smudgiest)

1. Marked with smudges.
   • 1979, Roald Dahl, The Twits:

     As you know, an ordinary unhairy face like yours or mine simply gets a bit smudgy if it is not washed often enough, and there's nothing so awful about that. But a hairy face is a very different matter.

2. Like a thick smoke (such as is emitted by a smudge pot); thick and smoky or smokelike.
   • 1918, The Saturday Evening Post, page 13:

     Pierre lighted his pipe and immediately the air about him because heavy, not with the aromatic perfume of choice Havanna but with a smudgy fog that made John cough. The cough was genuine, but John emphasized it a little as a suggestion that the coarse odor was anything but welcome- without, however, any appreciable result.

   • 1983, George Henry Johnston, Charmian Clift, Strong-man from Piraeus and Other Stories, page 114:

     […] the black, smudgy fog billowing up before his eyes, blotting out the peculiar smile on the face of the white lady. It was only then that he could feel the cold claws of terror clutching at his throat and heart.

3. Rainy or drizzly.
   • 1998, American Aviation Historical Society, AAHS Journal:

     Smudgy weather greeted Torpedo Five who had to dodge cloud banks and rain squalls as they flew at altitudes between 3,000 and 4,000 feet toward Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Finally the large island of Guadalcanal loomed ahead. Soon, they […]

   • 2000, Daniel Asa Rose, Hiding Places: A Father and His Sons Retrace Their Family's Escape from the Holocaust, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 160:

     […] under overcast skies. "It's a smudgy day," Alex observes. Indeed, a light drizzle falls from clouds that look as though they've been rubbed out with a fat eraser.

   • 2019 March 5, Martin Suter, Allmen and the Pink Diamond, New Vessel Press, →ISBN:

     "Smudgy day," she said. Allmen didn't understand. "It's raining from north, south, east, and west," she said. "Aha. And that's known as smudgy?" "By me it is."

4. Hot and humid or stuffy; sweltering.
   • 1985, Anne Moore, Tangled Vows, →ISBN:

     […] and the smudgy heat cast from the cavernous fireplace.

   • 1997, Mabel Peacock, The Peacock Lincolnshire Word Books: 1884-1920 : with Additions Dating from the 18th and Earlier 19th Centuries:

     blawing weather[:] Hot close smudgy weather when flies 'blow' or 'strike' sheep very much

   • 2021 August 16, Rana Bitar M.D., The Long Tale of Tears and Smiles: An Oncologist's Journey, Global Collective Publishers, →ISBN, page 73:

     A smudgy heat spread a blanket over the city and laid there, unmoved for weeks.