vapor
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈveɪpə/
ipa: /ˈveɪpɚ/
rhymes: -eɪpə(ɹ)
Forms: form: vapors
form: vapour
Etymology: From Middle English vapour, from Anglo-Norman vapour, Old French vapor, from Latin vapor (“steam, heat”).
Senses: examples: text: The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.[…]Drifts of yellow vapour, fiery, parching, stinging, filled the air.
ref: 1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid:
glosses: Cloudy diffused matter such as mist, steam or fumes suspended in the air.
examples: text: Surprisingly, this analysis revealed that acute exposure to solvent vapors at concentrations below those associated with long-term effects appears to increase the risk of a fatal automobile accident. Furthermore, this increase in risk is comparable to the risk of death from leukemia after long-term exposure to benzene, another solvent, which has the well-known property of causing this type of cancer.
ref: 2013 July-August, Philip J. Bushnell, “Solvents, Ethanol, Car Crashes & Tolerance”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
glosses: The gaseous state of a substance that is normally a solid or liquid.
examples: text: For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, James 4:14:
text: I am at this present very sick of my little vapour of fame.
ref: 1781, Horace Walpole, " ":
text: The press operates as a safety-valve for the vapor of popular ebullision.
ref: 1822, Charles Perkins, An Oration, page 19:
text: The previous question had turned the attention to life as something peculiarly frail, and as of such a nature that no calculation could be based on its permanence. This expression gives a reason for that, to wit, that it is a mere vapor.
ref: 1875, Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude, page 80:
text: Here we can explain only in these broad outlines why the asking of the question of being is in itself through and through historical, and why, accordingly, our question as to whether being will remain a mere vapor for us or become the destiny of the West is anything but an exaggeration and a rhetorical figure.
ref: 1999, Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, page 50:
glosses: Something insubstantial, fleeting, or transitory; unreal fancy; vain imagination; idle talk; boasting.
examples: text: Sulphurous fumes have also been recommended, as well as diffusing a variety of vapors in the apartment of the patient; on their beneficial or injurious effects we are unable to speak.
ref: 1836, Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, Charles Cowan, Pathological Researches on Phthisis, page 287:
text: Hence the vapor, so useful in expanding the compressed tissues and enabling the air to permeate and expand the contracted parenchyma in consumption, causes a sensation of great fatigue in asthma.
ref: 1854 November, Samuel A. Cartwright, “The Case of a Lady in a sugar-house, with Aphonic, Haemorrhagic, Tubercular Phthisis in the Softening State”, in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, volume 51, number 14, page 275:
text: Professor Matthews has at length the pleasure, after much unaboidable delay, of respectfully announcin to the Faculty, that he is prepared to fill their prescriptions by any practicable formula, in the use of his new method of applying medicinal vapors to the lungs, air-passages, & c., by means of the Multiform Fumigator .
ref: 1861, Charles Mathews, On fumigation of the lungs, throat, &c, page 1:
text: The physician can now prescribe medicinal vapors to be dropped on some cotton placed inside the inhaler.
ref: 1944, Quarterly Review of Otorhinolaryngology and Broncho-esophagology, page 68:
glosses: Any medicinal agent designed for administration in the form of inhaled vapour.
examples: text: Jan 13, 1732, John Arbuthnot, letter to Jonathan Swift
He talks me into a fit of vapours twice or thrice a week.
text: She made several gulps and controlled her breath. She released her grip on Podson and stared at him without recognition. Podson went on patting her reassuringly, relieved from administering first aid to an attack of the vapours.
ref: 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 188:
glosses: Hypochondria; melancholy; the blues; hysteria, or other nervous disorder.
examples: text: The surcharge of the stomack from a gross vapour, and from the poise of some outward weight, are alike
ref: 1605, Francis Bacon, “(please specify |book=1 or 2)”, in The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane, London: […] [Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede] for Henrie Tomes, […], →OCLC:
glosses: Wind; flatulence.
Derived terms: aqueous vapor
equilibrium vapor pressure
mercury-vapor lamp
saturated vapor pressure
saturation vapor pressure
sodium vapor lamp
vapor barrier
vaporescence
vaporescent
vapor lock
vapor pen
vapor pressure
vapor retarder
vapor trail
water vapor