Why this word is great
SMITTLE — [Adjective] Infectious, especially in the context of a contagious disease. It is a frequentative form from Middle English smitten ("to smear, stain, or taint"), from Old English smittian ("to defile or pollute"), related to German schmitzen ("to pollute") and Danish smitte ("to infect"). Unlike "contagious," which clinically describes transmission, or "virulent," which emphasizes pathological severity, *smittle* is the rustic word whispered over a hedgerow, carrying the chill of folk-wisdom and old, unavoidable blight. It is the damp woolen blanket shared between feverish children, the communal ladle in the water butt, the warning chalk mark upon a cottage door—a humble, material acknowledgement that to be alive is to be perpetually permeable, and the world itself is stained with passage.