Language: en
Meaning: (idiomatic)Something damaging to one's reputation.1751December (indicated as1752),Henry Fielding, chapter 5, inAmelia, volume III, London:[…][William Strahan] forA[ndrew]Millar[…],→OCLC, book VII,page25:In the sin of adultery, for instance, hath the government provided any law to punish it; or doth the priest take any care to correct it? On the contrary, is the most notorious practice of it any detriment to a man’s fortune, or to his reputation in the world? doth it exclude from him any preferment in the state, I had almost said, in the church? Is it anyblotch in his escutcheon, any bar to his honour?1819,Mathew Carey, chapter 6, inVindiciæ Hibernicæ: or, Ireland Vindicated[1], Philadelphia: self-published, page164:The most zealous advocates of the unfortunate monarch cannot deny that this is an indelibleblot on his escutcheon.1971, G. U. Ellis, chapter 6, inThackeray[2], New York: Haskell House, page95:He had been commissioned by Chapman & Hall to write another Christmas book—The Kickleburys on the Rhine—had received an advance payment, and with it had removed the lastblotfrom his stepfather’sescutcheonby paying off the last instalment of his debt.1984,Kathleen Hall Jamieson, chapter 8, inPackaging the Presidency[3], 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, published1996:Consequently, where the pardon became a convenient punching bag among contending Democrats, it was noblot onFord’sescutcheonin the primary contest between Ford and Reagan.
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