smoky
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
Etymology: From Middle English smoky, smokie, equivalent to smoke + -y.
Base: smoke
Affixes: -y
Inflected forms:
form: smokier
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: smokiest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: smokey
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: smoakie
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: Filled with smoke.
pos: adj
examples: a smoky cabin
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 […]
[We] never had better fires in England, then in the dry, ſmoaky houſes of Kecoughtan: […]
[…] 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 […]
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;
gloss: Filled with smoke.
pos: adj
examples: a smoky bar
“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.”
In the evenings he argued the toss at smoky meetings in pubs and school halls.
It was exactly the sort of line that brought screeches of laughter on Workers’ Playtime or Midday Music-hall. It was exactly the smoky, faded smuttiness he wanted to put behind him.
gloss: Giving off smoke.
pos: adj
examples: a smoky oil lamp
[…] 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?
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.
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.
gloss: Of a colour or colour pattern similar to that of smoke.
pos: adj
examples: The Pismire kinde of Aetius hath a smoky body, an ash-coloured neck, and the back as it were adorned with stars.
[…] 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.
There is more clear gold and scarlet in our old country mornings; more purple, brown, and smoky orange in those of the new.
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.
gloss: Having a flavour or odour like smoke; flavoured with smoke.
pos: adj
examples: a smoky whisky
[…] thei abstain from a smoky peace of Bacon or hard salted and poudred biefe or suche lyke […]
[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; [...]
I smelled it the moment I entered—that sweet smoky reek.
gloss: Resembling or composed of smoke.
pos: adj
examples: And let thy mustie vapours march so thicke,
That in their smoakie rankes, his smothred light
May set at noone, and make perpetuall night.
[…] I too gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of Walden vale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was awake.
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 […]
He [the bull] had horns galore, a coat of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of his nostrils […]
gloss: Blackened by smoke.
pos: adj
examples: 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 […]
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 […]
The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling […]
gloss: Having a deep, raspy quality, often as a result of smoking tobacco.
pos: adj
examples: “Stop the York four-day stage!” said he, forcing his smoky voice through a world of throat-embracing shawl […]
Father laughed his smoky laugh. […] The smoky laughter like a bridge between them over your head.
gloss: Attractive in a sensual way; sultry.
pos: adj
examples: There was still that smoky little thing about her. The sexy swaying walk, the dark voice.
Frankly, I don’t think his smoky Armenian looks drew their attention so much as the languid elegance of his manner […]
gloss: Having a dark, thick, bass sound.
pos: adj
examples: a few smoky jazz notes
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 […]
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.
[…] 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 […]
Then, just as the music, slow and smoky, loads up the air, his smile bright as ever, he wrinkles his nose and turns away.
gloss: Giving off steam or vapour.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: 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;
Dark was the Path, and difficult, and steep,
And thick with Vapours from the smoaky Deep.
gloss: Obscuring or insubstantial like smoke.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: […] to shewe them selfe playnely, to hate & deteste and abhorre vtterly, the pestylent contagyon of all suche smoky communycacyon.
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.
[…] scrambling with such distracted violence for the smoaky honours, the nominal wealth, the intoxicating pleasures of a few hasty daies […]
gloss: Suspicious; open to suspicion; jealous.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
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;
Related words: smoked
smoker
Derived words: Smokies
smokily
smokiness
smoky black
smoky eye
smoky eyes
Smoky Hills
smoky jungle frog
Smoky Lake
smoky quartz
Smoky River
unsmoky
Translations:
lang: Basque
word: ketsu
lang: Bulgarian
word: задимен
roman: zadimen
lang: Catalan
word: fumós
lang: Finnish
word: savuinen
lang: French
word: enfumé
lang: French
word: fumeux
lang: Georgian
word: ბოლიანი
roman: boliani
lang: Ancient Greek
word: καπνώδης
roman: kapnṓdēs
lang: Hindi
word: धूमिल
roman: dhūmil
lang: Latin
word: fūmōsus
lang: Latin
word: fūmeus
lang: Māori
word: mataauahi
lang: Māori
word: kaurukiruki
lang: Norman
word: enfuntchi
lang: Polish
word: zadymiony
lang: Russian
word: задымлённый
roman: zadymljónnyj
lang: Spanish
word: humeante
lang: Spanish
word: humoso
lang: Spanish
word: lleno de humo / jumo
lang: Swedish
word: rökig
lang: Tagalog
word: mausok
lang: Tausug
word: maasu
lang: Turkish
word: dumanlı