smoky
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: smō'kē
ipa: /ˈsmoʊki/
rhymes: -əʊki
Forms: form: smokier
form: smokiest
form: smoakie
form: smokey
Etymology: From Middle English smoky, smokie, equivalent to smoke + -y.
Senses: examples: text: a smoky cabin
text: Some sate turning of spits, and the place being all smoaky, made me thinke on hell, for the ioynts of meat lay as if they had bene broyling in the infernall fier […]
ref: 1608, Thomas Dekker, The Belman of London, London: Nathaniell Butter:
text: [We] never had better fires in England, then in the dry, ſmoaky houſes of Kecoughtan: […]
ref: 1624, Richard Pots; William Tankard; G. P.; William Simons, compiler, “Chap. VIII. Captaine Smiths Iourney to Pamavnkee.”, in Iohn Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles: […], London: […] I[ohn] D[awson] and I[ohn] H[aviland] for Michael Sparkes, →OCLC, book 3; reprinted in The Generall Historie of Virginia, … (Bibliotheca Americana), Cleveland, Oh.: The World Publishing Company, 1966, →OCLC, page 74:
text: […] even the smoky air of one of the most smoky streets of the suburbs is chearful, and salubrious, to the oppression I felt in the chamber we have just left […]
ref: 1775, Samuel Jackson Pratt, “A Moral, and Sentimental Excursion”, in Liberal Opinions, upon Animals, Man, and Providence, volume 2, London: G. Robinson and J. Bew, page 143:
text: 1819, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Peter Bell the Third,” Part 3, in The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, London: Edward Moxon, 1839, p. 240,
Hell is a city much like London—
A populous and a smoky city;
glosses: Filled with smoke.
examples: text: a smoky bar
text: “Say, little coon, let’s see you hit a step for the boys! […]”
“I can’t,” Sandy said, frowning instead of smiling, and growing warm as he stood there in the smoky circle of grinning white men. “I don’t know how to dance.”
ref: 1930, Langston Hughes, chapter 20, in Not Without Laughter, New York: Scribner, published 1995, page 214:
text: In the evenings he argued the toss at smoky meetings in pubs and school halls.
ref: 1974, John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, London: Pan Books, published 1975, Part 2, Chapter 17, p. 134:
glosses: Filled with smoke.
Filled with or enveloped in tobacco smoke.
examples: text: a smoky oil lamp
text: […] is it I
That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of smoky muskets?
ref: c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
text: 1894, George Santayana, Sonnet, in Sonnets and Other Verses, Cambridge, MA: Stone and Kimball, p. 5,
Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
That lights the pathway but one step ahead
Across a void of mystery and dread.
text: The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.[…]It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped.
ref: 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
glosses: Giving off smoke.
examples: text: The Pismire kinde of Aetius hath a smoky body, an ash-coloured neck, and the back as it were adorned with stars.
ref: 1658, Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents, London: G. Sawbridge, et al, Book 2, Chapter 12, p. 1059:
text: […] the broken walls and roofs were distinguishable even at that distance, and sometimes a part, which had been repaired, contrasted its colour with the black and smoky hues of the remainder.
ref: 1795, Ann Radcliffe, “Metz”, in A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany, London: G.G. and J. Robinson, page 179:
text: There is more clear gold and scarlet in our old country mornings; more purple, brown, and smoky orange in those of the new.
ref: 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Across the Plains: Leaves from the Notebook of an Emigrant between New York and San Francisco”, in Across the Plains: With Other Memories and Essays, London: Chatto & Windus, […], published 1892, →OCLC, page 9:
text: The saleswomen, with their all-black ensembles and smoky eyelids, were as open and affirming as the sight of RuPaul's spread legs in the Viva Glam lipstick ads.
ref: 2014, Janet Mock, Redefining Realness:
glosses: Of a colour or colour pattern similar to that of smoke.
examples: text: a smoky whisky
text: […] thei abstain from a smoky peace of Bacon or hard salted and poudred biefe or suche lyke […]
ref: c. 1551, Thomas Beccon, chapter 9, in A Fruitful Treatise of Fasting, London: John Day:
text: [S]ome Dutch officers complained that the ſoup was ſmoaky, and the beef was tough, we adventurers declared that we never had taſted a more delicious repaſt; [...]
ref: 1796, J[ohn] G[abriel] Stedman, chapter XXX, in Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America; […], volume II, London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], and J. Edwards, […], →OCLC, page 392:
text: I smelled it the moment I entered—that sweet smoky reek.
ref: 1990, Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World, New York: Picador, published 1998, Part 1, p. 84:
glosses: Having a flavour or odour like smoke; flavoured with smoke.
examples: text: And let thy mustie vapours march so thicke,
That in their smoakie rankes, his smothred light
May set at noone, and make perpetuall night.
ref: 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:
text: […] I too gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of Walden vale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was awake.
ref: 1854, Henry David Thoreau, “House-Warming”, in Walden, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, page 271:
text: And now the sky was a bright sea sown with islands; they shrank and crumbled and drifted away, islands no more, but a multitude of plumes and flakes and smoky wreaths hastily scudding, for the sun had lifted his tranquil eye on the heavens […]
ref: 1914, James Stephens, The Demi-Gods, London: Macmillan, Book 4, Chapter 34, p. 293:
text: He [the bull] had horns galore, a coat of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of his nostrils […]
ref: 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 381:
glosses: Resembling or composed of smoke.
examples: text: Shepheard I take thy word,
And trust thy honest offer’d courtesie,
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds
With smoakie rafters, then in tapstrie halls,
And courts of Princes […]
ref: 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC, page 12:
english: Comus
translation: Comus
text: The room smelt close and unwholesome; the walls were dirt-discoloured; and the ceiling blackened. There was an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the dock […]
ref: 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:
text: The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling […]
ref: 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, chapter 4, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
glosses: Blackened by smoke.
examples: text: “Stop the York four-day stage!” said he, forcing his smoky voice through a world of throat-embracing shawl […]
ref: 1834, William Harrison Ainsworth, chapter 5, in Rookwood, volume 3, London: Richard Bentley, page 298:
text: Father laughed his smoky laugh. […] The smoky laughter like a bridge between them over your head.
ref: 1973, Patrick White, chapter 10, in The Eye of the Storm, New York: Viking, page 506:
glosses: Having a deep, raspy quality, often as a result of smoking tobacco.
raw_tags: of a person's voice
examples: text: There was still that smoky little thing about her. The sexy swaying walk, the dark voice.
ref: 1988, Don DeLillo, Libra, Penguin, published 1989, Part 1, 20 May, p. 124:
text: Frankly, I don’t think his smoky Armenian looks drew their attention so much as the languid elegance of his manner […]
ref: 2003, Lionel Shriver, “March 3, 2001”, in We Need to Talk About Kevin, London: Serpent’s Tail:
glosses: Attractive in a sensual way; sultry.
examples: text: a few smoky jazz notes
text: 1962, Philip Larkin, “Billie’s Golden Years,” The Daily Telegraph, 17 October, 1962, republished in All What Jazz: A Record Diary, 1961—1971, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1985, p. 73,
[…] the sombre and magnificent Davis fronts both his Quartet and Gil Evans’s orchestra, pouring out a succession of smoky and sonorous solos […]
text: The organ took on a dark, smoky sonority at evening service, and there was no doubt that the organ was adapting its normal sounds to accompany God’s own sepulchral responses […] to those prayers that were offered to him.
ref: 1981, Wole Soyinka, chapter 1, in Aké: The Years of Childhood, New York: Vintage, published 1983, page 1:
text: […] there emerged from the car a pair of the sort of legs which soundtrack editors are unable to see without needing to slap a smoky saxophone solo all over […]
ref: 1988, Douglas Adams, chapter 11, in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, London: Pan Books, published 1989, pages 90–91:
text: Then, just as the music, slow and smoky, loads up the air, his smile bright as ever, he wrinkles his nose and turns away.
ref: 1992, Toni Morrison, Jazz, New York: Plume, published 1993, page 67:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: Having a dark, thick, bass sound.
examples: text: 1594, Thomas Kyd (translator), Cornelia (Cornélie) by Robert Garnier, London: Nicholas Ling and John Busbie, Act V,
He wrencht it [his sword] to the pommel through his sides,
That fro the wound the smoky blood ran bubling,
Where-with he staggred;
text: Dark was the Path, and difficult, and steep,
And thick with Vapours from the smoaky Deep.
ref: 1717, “The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice”, in William Congreve, transl., Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books, translated by the most eminent hands, London: Jacob Tonson, page 334:
glosses: Giving off steam or vapour.
examples: text: […] to shewe them selfe playnely, to hate & deteste and abhorre vtterly, the pestylent contagyon of all suche smoky communycacyon.
ref: 1534, Thomas More, The answere to the fyrst parte of the poysened booke, which a namelesse heretyke hath named the souper of the lorde, London: Preface:
text: If besides vayne crakes of smoky speeches, ye shewe no demonstration of sounde proofe, why these bragges of yours should be true, let vs graunt your saying.
ref: 1581, Walter Haddon et al., translated by James Bell, Against Ierome Osorius Byshopp of Siluane in Portingall, London: John Daye, Book 3:
text: […] scrambling with such distracted violence for the smoaky honours, the nominal wealth, the intoxicating pleasures of a few hasty daies […]
ref: 1658, Richard Baxter, The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ, London: Nevill Simmons, Preface:
glosses: Obscuring or insubstantial like smoke.
examples: 1765, Samuel Foote, The Commissary, Act I, in The Works of Samuel Foote, London: George Robinson et al., 1799, Volume 2, p. 18,
[…] this old brother of ours tho’ is smoky and shrewd, and tho’ an odd, a sensible fellow;
glosses: Suspicious; open to suspicion; jealous.
Synonyms: sense: resembling or composed of smoke
word: fumid
sense: resembling or composed of smoke
word: fumous
Derived terms: smokily
smokiness
smoky black
smoky eye
smoky eyes
Smoky Hills
smoky jungle frog
Smoky Lake
smoky quartz
Smoky River
Related terms: smoked
smoker