blemishing

verb

present participle of blemish
1
as in marring
to affect slightly with something morally bad or undesirable a single indiscretion blemished the rabbi's reputation for years

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in damaging
to reduce the soundness, effectiveness, or perfection of a scratch blemished the finish on the car

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for blemishing
  1. marring
  2. damaging
  3. tainting
  4. injuring
  5. spoiling
  6. crippling
  7. staining
  8. compromising
Verb
  • The latter track takes overt inspiration from Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette, as Jepsen beckons her love to engage in life’s vices with her, like marring bedsheets with fruit stains and dashing nude through the garden.
    — Jaeden Pinder, Rolling Stone, 14 Sep. 2026
  • There has been no evidence of widespread fraud marring American elections.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 10 Sep. 2026
Definition of marring
Verb
  • David Hearn, the former Olympics canoeist accused of damaging Washington's Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool before prosecutors dropped the case, cannot be recharged, a judge has ruled.
    — Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 2 Oct. 2026
  • Meanwhile, on the charging case, iFixit struggled to access its components without damaging the external plastic.
    — Jibin Joseph, PC Magazine, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of damaging
Verb
  • Several homeowners near Meta’s massive Newton County data center have filed a lawsuit accusing the tech company and others of tainting their water and destroying their rural way of life.
    — Zachary Hansen, AJC.com, 1 Sep. 2026
  • For all intents and purposes, an unknown actor can wade unburdened into the depths of Bond, able to transform without a viewer’s prior expectation tainting the image of 007.
    — Emily Maskell, IndieWire, 10 July 2026
Definition of tainting
Verb
  • North Korean mines have occasionally been carried into South Korea by swollen rivers, killing or injuring civilians.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 28 Sep. 2026
  • Hall, 25, is considered week-to-week after injuring his groin in Sunday’s 31-24 loss to the Lions, sources confirmed.
    — Antwan Staley, New York Daily News, 28 Sep. 2026
Definition of injuring
Verb
  • The loss was Boston’s eighth in 12 games, spoiling Chad Tracy’s first game as manager after the club named him its 49th in team history.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 22 Sep. 2026
  • That’s 10 games against teams that don’t have much to play for, aside from spoiling Toronto’s season.
    — Mitch Bannon, New York Times, 16 Sep. 2026
Definition of spoiling
Verb
  • Then, after becoming Trojans AD in August 2010, he was tasked with moving the athletic department past crippling NCAA sanctions.
    — The Athletic College Football Staff, New York Times, 16 Sep. 2026
  • And the high pay they’re being offered as a lure is crippling the economy.
    — The Week UK, TheWeek, 15 Aug. 2026
Definition of crippling
Verb
  • Use only white, clear or purple products on your hair to avoid staining.
    — Maggie Ryan, Flow Space, 25 Sep. 2026
  • Caie concurs, recommending paying careful attention to the cuticles before adding a base coat to fill nail ridges and prevent staining.
    — Violet Hayward, Vogue, 24 Sep. 2026
Definition of staining
Verb
  • Construction leaders will choose technology partners that make their work more efficient without compromising the rigor that protects their projects and businesses.
    — Francesco Iorio, Forbes.com, 24 Sep. 2026
  • Yet, scientists have created a titanium structure that floats without compromising the metal’s strength.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 20 Sep. 2026
Definition of compromising
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

blemishes
blemishing
blench
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Blemishing.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/blemishing. Accessed 2 Oct. 2026.

Copy Citation
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of heterodox

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

Do You Need a New Language Peeve?

More Commonly Mispronounced Words

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

7 Great Ways to Say 'Great'

The Longest Long Words List

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

The Words of the Week - Oct. 2

16 Food Words Recently Added to the Dictionary
See More

Popular

See More

Do You Need a New Language Peeve?

7 Great Ways to Say 'Great'

The Longest Long Words List
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
name tags
Words Named After People Quiz Find out who’s behind "leotard," "morphine," an...
See All