- a fine rain, drizzle, smoke, haze. Some kinds of rain seem wetter than others and a smirr creeps damply and deviously in below umbrellas. The pervasiveness of smirring rain is captured by Alan Sharp: When she got out it was starting to rain a soft smirr. . . . The rain spun down all around her, soundless, small as small, a mood of rain falling gently yet relentlessly, wetting everywhere (Alan Sharp A Green Tree in Gedde 1965). Sharp’s phrase ‘a mood of rain’ will resonate with anyone who has sat in a smirr gazing at a romantic ruin or a mountain landscape.
Ian Rankin is another fan of this word: The Scots language is especially rich in words to do with the weather: ‘dreich’ and ‘smirr’ are only two of them. . . . Only it wasn’t real rain, it was smirr, a fine spray-mist which drenched you before you knew it. It was blowing in from the west, moisture straight from the Atlantic Ocean. It was all Rebus needed first thing on a dreich Monday morning (Ian Rankin Black & Blue 1997).
Rebus might not appreciate a smirr but if we must have rain this is a pleasantly gentle kind to have.