Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To daub, smear, or spread; dirty.
  • noun A daub: as, a clart of grease.
  • noun plural Tenacious mire or mud.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Prov. Eng. To daub, smear, or spread, as with mud, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A daub.
  • noun Sticky mud, mire or filth.
  • noun Geordie, pejorative A person who is unclean.
  • noun Geordie, pejorative A fool.
  • verb transitive To daub, smear, or spread, especially with mud, etc.; to dirty.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English *clart, found in the verb biclarten ("to cover or smear with dirt"). Further origin uncertain.

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Examples

  • So I waited while he gorged his way through half a dozen overblown courses - why the French must clart decent grub with glutinous sauces beats me - and when the waiters had cleared and we were at the brandy and cigars he sighed with repletion, patted his guts, and fished a mounted picture from his pocket.

    Watershed 2010

  • Her stolen uniform was rumpled and dirty from sleeping in the alley, and she stuck out like a clump of clart on a fancy china plate.

    Behemoth Mr. Scott Westerfeld 2010

  • It was always damp and smelled of horse clart from the stables below.

    LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009

  • And the toilets aboard the Leviathan “heads” in Service-speak were in the dark gastric channel, which carried off clart to turn it into ballast and hydrogen.

    LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009

  • A cloud of fléchette bats swirled farther up, and she saw a concussion shell arcing its way from the Leviathan, its big harmless boom about to scare the clart right out of them.

    LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009

  • Fléchette bats were mortally afraid of the color red— it scared the deadly clart right out of them.

    LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009

  • A cloud of fléchette bats swirled farther up, and she saw a concussion shell arcing its way from the Leviathan, its big harmless boom about to scare the clart right out of them.

    LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009

  • They were ruining a hundred picnics and risking disaster by landing here in the park, and probably scaring the clart out of every Monkey Luddite in London.

    LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009

  • It was always damp and smelled of horse clart from the stables below.

    LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009

  • It sparkled prettily in the sunlight, but Deryn knew where that ballast came from—it was straight from the gastric channel, clart and all.

    LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009

Comments

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  • noun - mud, clay. I have also seen the verb clart, meaning to smear (as with mud or clay). "We will dook for apples and clart our faces with treacle, then dispatch the girls up to bed and hide from the doorbell with the lights out." - 'Hallowe'en lost its spirit with trick or treat', Inverness Courier,

    Scotland, 30 October 2007.

    November 1, 2007

  • Also, comedic (English speaking) Welsh slang of indeterminate meaning.

    May 14, 2008

  • Sheer likeness gave Warhol his start

    But abstract’s still state of the art.

    There’s no need of skill.

    The critics will thrill

    At the beauty of your random clart.

    May 1, 2019