Edit page | Page history | Printable version

smoke

1. To apply smoke to; to hang in smoke; to disinfect, to cure, etc, by smoke; as, to smoke or fumigate infected clothing; to smoke beef or hams for preservation.

2. To fill or scent with smoke; hence, to fill with incense; to perfume. Smoking the temple.

3. To smell out; to hunt out; to find out; to detect. I alone Smoked his true person, talked with him. (Chapman) He was first smoked by the old lord Lafeu. (Shak) Upon that . . . I began to smoke that they were a parcel of mummers. (Addison)

4. To ridicule to the face; to quiz.

5. To inhale and puff out the smoke of, as tobacco; to burn or use in smoking; as, to smoke a pipe or a cigar.

6. To subject to the operation of smoke, for the purpose of annoying or driving out; often with out; as, to smoke a woodchuck out of his burrow.

1. The visible exhalation, vapor, or substance that escapes, or expelled, from a burning body, especially from burning vegetable matter, as wood, coal, peat, or the like.

The gases of hydrocarbons, raised to a red heat or thereabouts, without a mixture of air enough to produce combustion, disengage their carbon in a fine powder, forming smoke. The disengaged carbon when deposited on solid bodies is soot.

2. That which resembles smoke; a vapor; a mist.

3. Anything unsubstantial, as idle talk.

4. The act of smoking, especially. Of smoking tobacco; as, to have a smoke.

Smoke is sometimes joined with other word. Forming self-explaining compounds; as, smoke-consuming, smoke-dried, smoke-stained, etc. Smoke arch, the smoke box of a locomotive. Smoke ball, a small sail in the lee of the galley stovepipe, to prevent the smoke from annoying people on deck.

(Science: botany) Smoke tree, a shrub (rhus Cotinus) in which the flowers are mostly abortive and the panicles transformed into tangles of plumose pedicels looking like wreaths of smoke. To end in smoke, to burned; hence, to be destroyed or ruined; figuratively, to come to nothing.

Synonym: fume, reek, vapor.

Origin: AS. Smoca, fr. Smeocan to smoke; akin to LG. & D. Smook smoke, Dan. Smog, G. Schmauch, and perh. To Gr. To burn in a smoldering fire; cf. Lith. Smaugti to choke.