What does ‘schmutter’ actually mean? It’s a strange word if ever there was one. Schmutter refers to worthless material, an informal Yiddish- Jewish slang word originating from the 1950’s era for the term ‘rag’ in reference to clothing garments. In the English language, more technically, ‘smutter’ is an operator of machinery for cleaning smut and other impurities from grain. In botany and chemistry, the term ‘smutter’ is associated with mildew, fungi spores and other dirty, un