Word: smirch
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...family commit him or that the courts remand him into hospital care. In such situations, the doctor can only try to persuade, though the psychotic is not notably amenable to having himself locked up. Nor, often, is his family, who may still regard mental illness as a shameful smirch and resist formal commitment to an institution until it is too late...