smoke
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: smōk
ipa: /sməʊk/
enpr: smōk
ipa: /smoʊk/
ipa: /smoːk/
rhymes: -əʊk
Forms: form: smokes
form: smoak
Etymology: From Middle English smoke, from Old English smoca (“smoke”), probably a derivative of the verb (see below). Related to Dutch smook (“smoke”), Middle Low German smôk (“smoke”), dialectal German Schmauch (“smoke”).
Senses: examples: text: If those were the days, however, when steam was triumphant, they were also the days of smoke. Nowhere was this so apparent as at "Kings Cross (Suburban)" where, one after another, the Great Northern tank engines thumped their way up the incline and emerged from the tunnel, in clouds of steam and smoke, to pound their way up the last few hundred feet of gradient alongside the platform.
ref: 1952 October, C. A. Johns, “One Hundred Years at Kings Cross—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 657:
text: Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.
ref: 2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:
glosses: The visible vapor/vapour, gases, and fine particles given off by burning or smoldering material.
examples: text: Can I bum a smoke off you?; I need to go buy some smokes.
text: 2019, Idles, "Never Fight a Man With a Perm", Joy as an Act of Resistance.
I said I've got a penchant for smokes and kicking douches in the mouth / Sadly for you my last cigarette's gone out
glosses: A cigarette.
examples: text: Hey, you got some smoke?
text: ERCS Guard: Got a smoke? We're all out.
ref: 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Noveria:
glosses: Anything to smoke (e.g. cigarettes, marijuana, etc.)
examples: text: I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching.
ref: 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC:
text: I'm going out for a smoke.
qualifier: never plural
glosses: An instance of smoking a cigarette, cigar, etc.; the duration of this act.
examples: text: The excitement behind the new candidate proved to be smoke.
text: I fed her a lot of smoke about a sheep station outside Adelaide and a big property in the high street with a glass front and ‘Thomas’ in lights. She didn’t believe me.
ref: 1974, John le Carré, chapter 6, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, New York: Knopf, page 44:
glosses: A fleeting illusion; something insubstantial, evanescent, unreal, transitory, or without result.
examples: text: The smoke of controversy.
glosses: Something used to obscure or conceal; an obscuring condition; see also smoke and mirrors.
glosses: A light grey color tinted with blue.
examples: text: You better not be giving me no smoke.
glosses: Bother, trouble; problems; hassle.
glosses: Any cloud of solid particles or liquid vapor dispersed into the air; particularly one of:
Opaque aerosol released on a battlefield, used e.g. to signal or to degrade enemy observation via smokescreen.
examples: text: There has been a great deal of smoke in the yew-trees this year. One day there was such a cloud that it seemed to be a fire in the shrubbery. […]
ref: 1868, Emily Sarah Sellwood Tennyson, journal entry quoted in 1897, Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son, page 53
text: A gustful April morn / That puff'd the swaying branches into smoke.
ref: 1869, Alfred Tennyson, Holy Grail, 15
text: […] "fruitful cloud and living smoke" of pollen that rises from every spray. The two kinds of flowers are borne on separate trees and the resulting berries are pretty at all stages, and, when ripe, […]
ref: 1903, Mary Rowles Jarvis, The Tree Book, page 33:
text: […] the "smoke" of pollen is so thick that distant hills look as if they are on fire. The culprit is the male cedar, which bears miniscule golden pine cones that release pollen when they pop open. The female tree produces a[…]
ref: 1998, Diane Capito, Mark Willis, San Antonio on Foot:
text: […] a smoke of pollen drifts down upon the mat, it is covered and sealed in the ongoing growth of the sphagnum. A dusting of ash from a volcanic eruption halfway around the world becomes incorporated into the time line of its day,[…]
ref: 2001 June 14, David M. Carroll, Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year, HMH, →ISBN, page 258:
glosses: Any cloud of solid particles or liquid vapor dispersed into the air; particularly one of:
Pollen scattered by a plant.
examples: text: […] steeds, whose lowdnes filled the aire with terrour, and whose breathes dimmed the sun with smoake, converted to delicate tunes and amorous glances?
ref: 1858 [1584?], John Lyly, The Dramatic Works of John Lilly, page 110:
text: You'll find that one of these days. If there's work ahead you ought to have sense enough not to knock smoke out of fresh horses before we begin.
ref: 1898, Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms: A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia, page 71:
text: […] and a smoke of rain was drifting everywhere. In the thin drizzle the sheep were bleating among the dripping heather, and the birds were chattering and chirming in the shelter of the trees and bushes, and on the top of a sapling larch a[…]
ref: 1901, The Church Standard, page 613:
text: […] in a smoke of rain and spray on the long grey shore. The cry of curlews. Your footprints filling up with water the moment you make them. […]
ref: 2012 February 14, Robert Nye, Falstaff: A Novel, Skyhorse, →ISBN:
glosses: Any cloud of solid particles or liquid vapor dispersed into the air; particularly one of:
Mist, fog, or drizzle; water vapour, such as from exhalation into cold air.
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A fastball.
examples: text: Should the commander of one column desire to communicate with the other, he raises three smokes simultaneously, which, if seen by the other party, should be responded to in the same manner.
ref: 1860, Randolph Barnes Marcy, The Prairie and Overland Traveller, page 203:
text: […] and we could not discern any settlement or any people, but we did see two smokes up-river in some thick groves of oak and cork and willows and other high trees, of a good thickness, resembling ash trees.
ref: 1923, California Historical Society Quarterly, volume 2, page 152:
text: In the evening haze, even the Calton Gaol took on something of the savage grandeur of a Doré drawing, and this was by no means spoilt by the rising smokes of North British engines in the ravine below.
ref: 1941 January, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The Scottish Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 1:
text: During the night, a severe lightning storm passed over this area and in the morning the towerman reported two smokes separated by about two miles distance.
ref: 1957, Sylva: The Lands and Forests Review, volumes 13-14, page 43:
text: The aerial reconnaissance did see active flame on heavy fuels (logs) and fine fuels (duff/understory), and several smokes.
ref: 2021 May 15, “Guadalupe Mountains National Park Temporarily Closes Backcountry Campsites due to Dog Fire”, in Guadalupe Mountains National Park News Releases:
glosses: A distinct column of smoke, such as indicating a burning area or fire.
Synonyms: sense: cigarette
word: cig
sense: cigarette
word: ciggy
sense: cigarette
word: cancer stick
sense: cigarette
word: coffin nail
sense: cigarette
word: fag
Derived terms: word: Arctic sea smoke
word: Arctic smoke
word: Big Smoke
word: big smoke
word: blow smoke
word: blow smoke up someone's ass
word: blow smoke up someone's arse
word: cigar-smoke
word: cigar smoke
word: coal-smoke
word: deliberate smoke
word: devil smoke
word: end in smoke
word: frost smoke
word: go up in smoke
word: holy smoke
word: in a puff of smoke
word: left-handed smoke shifter
word: liquid smoke
word: London smoke
word: magic smoke
word: no smoke without fire
word: pass the bottle of smoke
word: peat-smoke
word: pop smoke
word: prairie smoke
word: screening smoke
word: sea smoke
word: second-hand smoke
word: secondhand smoke
word: sidestream smoke
word: smog
word: smoke alarm
word: smoke and mirrors
word: smoke arch
word: smokeasy
word: smoke black
word: smoke-blower
word: smoke blower
word: smoke board
word: smoke bomb
word: smokebox
word: smoke-colored pewee
word: smoke consumer
word: smoke deflector
word: smoke detector
word: smoke diver
word: smoke diving
word: smoke-dried
word: smoke-dry
word: smoke-easy
word: smoke-eater
word: smoke eater
word: smoke explosion
word: smoke-filled
word: smoke-filled room
word: smoke-free
word: smoke grenade
word: smoke grinder
taxonomic: Circus assimilis
word: smoke hawk
word: smokeho
word: smokehole
word: smoke hood
word: smokehouse
word: smoke-in
word: smokejack
word: smoke jack
word: smokejumper
word: smoke jumper
word: smokeless
word: smoke machine
word: smoke meat
word: smoken
word: smoke-o
word: smoke-oh
word: smokeplate
word: smoke point
word: smoke pole
word: smoke proof
word: smoke ring
word: smokeroom
word: smoke room
word: smoke sail
word: smoke sauna
word: smokescreen
word: smoke-screen
word: smoke screen
word: smoke-shade
word: smoke show
word: smoke-signal
word: smoke signal
word: smoke sponge
word: smokestack
word: smoke stand
word: smoke test
word: smoke tower
word: smoke tree
word: smoke wagon
word: smoke-washer
word: smoke wrench
word: Smokey the Bear
word: there's no smoke without fire
word: third-hand smoke
word: throwing smoke
word: throw smoke
word: water smoke
word: white smoke
Related terms: fumaric acid
fumarole
fumet
fumigate
fumitory
perfume
sfumato
smog
smoko
smoky quartz