The other day I was thinking about the phrase “smacks of” (“That smacks of treason,” etc.), and wondered about its etymology. My first guess was that it was cognate to the German verb “schmecken” (“to taste”) - and surprisingly I was right smack - Wiktionary
Cool! To be filed under “Things I should have guessed (but didn’t)”
Cool, congratulations! And what about smack in the middle, smack in the face, smack in the eye? Must be another etymological smack for lack of an of, as it does not work with schmecken.
That “smack” apparently comes from a different root, and is possibly onomatopoetic smack | Etymology, origin and meaning of smack by etymonline
“So watery…and yet there’s a smack of ham to it!”
I like that etymonline, thanks! Straight to the favourites it went.
And smack has a lot of meanings and possibly origins, it says. Cool.
Etymonline.com is way behind the times, or possibly way ahead of them.
I looked there for smack dab, and found they said it was from 1892.
But I put the term into newspapers.com and the first hit is from June 20, 1874, in the Loudon, TN, Times. The story is an untitled anecdote as a space filler.
Young Jack got gloriously drunk, and kicked chairs and tables, crockery and Chinaware round generally and at dinnertime wound the thing up by taking old Jack smack dab, between the peepers, with a large dish of gravy.
Every indication is that smack dab was a slang term as well known as peepers. Why it’s not found earlier is hard to say. It does probably evolve from slap-dab, which is found as early as 1863, not 1886, as the site says.