Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also smeer) a house-painter.

1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: Smear, a Painter, or Plaisterer.
1728		Defoe Street Robberies Considered 34: Smeer, a Painter.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
c.1750–1855		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).

2. a plasterer.

1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: Smear, a Painter, or Plaisterer.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
c.1750–1855		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 76: Smear, a plasterer or mason.

3. (Aus.) the corpse of a murdered person.

1943		Baker ‘Influence of American Sl. on Australia’ in AS XVIII:4 256: A person who has been taken for a ride in the U.S. is a smear in Australia.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 239/1: smear – a person who has been murdered.

4. (US) a murder.

1948

C.S. Montanye ‘Crepe for Suzette’ Thrilling Detective Oct. 🌐 The front pages of the metropolitan press headlined the mysterious killing of [...] Suzette Darcy. Bill Jamison [...] had turned in his usual good job on the dressing room smear.