Q&A: Where does ‘smarmy’ come from?

Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, smarmy surplus…

Q: Hi AWC, where does the word “smarmy” come from?

A: It is a rather onomatopoeic word, isn’t it? 

Q: Yes, I usually can’t help saying it in a smarmy way.

A: Well, let’s start with some definitions. Because “smarmy” is an adjective, but the lesser-used word “smarm” is where it all started. Macquarie Dictionary describes “smarm” as either a noun – flattery; unctuousness; fulsomeness – OR as a verb, essentially – to be servile or fawn ingratiatingly.

Q: So, to smarm is to suck up?

A: Yes. As well as being the act of sucking up. Much like the verb “smear” will result in, you guessed it, a smear.

Q: And something that is smeary.

A: Precisely! As we also see here, with the adjective “smarmy” – listed as colloquial for ingratiating, falsely charming, or flattering. The Americans in Merriam-Webster add “smug and self-satisfied” to that list, while also taking the definition a step further, with an extra meaning “of low sleazy taste or quality” – such as in smarmy eroticism.

Q: Oooh la la.

A: Yes, we’ll probably leave that one and stick to the smug variety for now.

Q: Good idea. So how old is the word? Surely monks in the 13th century weren’t getting their smarm on?

A: True, they were not. In fact, it seems to have first been recorded in 1847 – but only as the verb form, and not with a meaning that’s still in use today.

Q: Oh really? What was the meaning?

A: Remember how we compared “smarm” to “smear”?

Q: Well yes, it was only twenty-six seconds ago.

A: Okay good. Because back in 1847, to smarm was specifically to smear (make smooth or oily) your hair with wax – or “pomade” as hair product was traditionally known.

Q: Pomade? 

A: Yeah, it’s a word that’s still around in hairstyling circles. The word first arrived in English in 1598 and got its name from the French pommade ointment made from apples, which in term came from the Italian “pomo” for apple.

Q: Okay, so these Italian apples in a French ointment were smarmed on Victorian-era heads, yes?

A: That’s right! No one is quite sure how the word “smarm” came about, but it could have been a mash-up of smear and balm or balsam – a mixture that you might have applied to your hair.

Q: And yet this meaning is dead today?

A: That’s right. In fact, no literal smearing uses this word anymore. Instead, as we said earlier, it is now solely about figuratively “smearing with flattery” – a meaning which first appeared in dictionaries in 1902. 

Q: How did this come about?

A: It seems that it was coined by a Brighton resident named “B.R.L.” in an 1899 competition by a London publication asking for neologisms (new words). B.R.L. gave the word a brand new definition of “saying treacly things that do not sound genuine” and this, rather ironically, stuck.

Q: Ironically, because the other hair wax definition should have been the one to stick?

A: Exactly. Instead, it got out-smarmed by a newer, more flattering definition.

Q: So the verb was first. Then what?

A: The adjective “smarmy” followed in 1909 – curiously originally meaning “smooth and sleek”, no doubt still clinging to its haircare days. 

Q: “I say, Henry, me old chap, you’re looking mighty smarmy today!”

A: Yeah, that kind of thing. The noun version of “smearing with flattery” soon followed in 1914 and the adjective of that – the one that remains today – appears first in 1924.

Q: One hundred years of being smarmy! Who do we have to suck up to in order to have a centenary celebration?

A: Haha. Not sure, but it would be a very slippery ordeal.

Q: I’ll get the smarmy army onto it right away!

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