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smote

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The archaic past tense of "smite," meaning struck with a heavy blow, killed, or defeated; common in epic and biblical verse.

Detailed Definition
This is an older literary form of the verb smite, meaning to strike, hit, or wound. In the poem, it refers to the force that has wounded the swan: "On him who smote!"
Example
Example in poetry:
“Love for defiance back / On him who smote!” — archaic smote, the past tense of smite, means struck or inflicted a blow upon; “And Moses lifted up his hand, and smote the rock” supplies the biblical register often echoed in poetry; Tennyson’s Arthurian diction uses such elevated past tenses for heroic violence; modern poems may use smote ironically to invoke old epic language; compare ordinary modern “struck”
Additional Notes
The form "smote" in the quoted line is an older, literary past tense that many modern readers may not immediately recognize.; Found in the poem, The Dying Swan by T. Sturge Moore
Also Known As
struck smitten hit
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