smoke

See also: Smoke

English

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • (UK) enPR: smōk, IPA(key): /sməʊk/
  • (US) enPR: smōk, IPA(key): /smoʊk/
  • (Canada, Scotland) IPA(key): /smoːk/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Audio (UK):(file)
  • Rhymes: -əʊk

Etymology 1

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”).

Noun

smoke (countable and uncountable, plural smokes)

  2. (uncountable) The visible vapor/vapour, gases, and fine particles given off by burning or smoldering material.
    • 1952 October, C. A. Johns, “One Hundred Years at Kings Cross—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 657:
      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.
    • 2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:
      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.
  3. (colloquial, countable) A cigarette.
    Can I bum a smoke off you?;  I need to go buy some smokes.
    • 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
  4. (colloquial, uncountable) Anything to smoke (e.g. cigarettes, marijuana, etc.)
    Hey, you got some smoke?
  5. (colloquial, countable, never plural) An instance of smoking a cigarette, cigar, etc.; the duration of this act.
    I'm going out for a smoke.
  6. (uncountable, figuratively) A fleeting illusion; something insubstantial, evanescent, unreal, transitory, or without result.
    The excitement behind the new candidate proved to be smoke.
    • 1974, John le Carré, chapter 6, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy‎[1], New York: Knopf, page 44:
      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.
  7. (uncountable, figuratively) Something used to obscure or conceal; an obscuring condition; see also smoke and mirrors.
    The smoke of controversy.
  8. (uncountable) A light grey color tinted with blue.
    smoke:  
  9. (uncountable, slang) Bother; problems; hassle.
    You better not be giving me no smoke.
  10. (uncountable) Any cloud of solid particles or liquid vapor dispersed into the air; particularly one of:
    1. Opaque aerosol released on a battlefield, used e.g. to signal or to degrade enemy observation via smokescreen.
    2. Pollen scattered by a plant.
      • 1868, Emily Sarah Sellwood Tennyson, journal entry quoted in 1897, Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son, page 53:
        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. […]
      • 1869, Alfred Tennyson, Holy Grail, 15:
        A gustful April morn / That puff'd the swaying branches into smoke.
      • 1903, Mary Rowles Jarvis, The Tree Book, page 33:
        […] "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, […]
      • 1998, Diane Capito, Mark Willis, San Antonio on Foot:
        […] 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 […]
      • 2001 June 14, David M. Carroll, Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year, HMH, →ISBN, page 258:
        […] 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, […]
    3. Mist, fog, or drizzle; water vapour, such as from exhalation into cold air.
      • 1858 [1584?], John Lyly, The Dramatic Works of John Lilly, page 110:
        […] steeds, whose lowdnes filled the aire with terrour, and whose breathes dimmed the sun with smoake, converted to delicate tunes and amorous glances?
      • 1898, Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms: A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia, page 71:
        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.
      • 1901, The Church Standard, page 613:
        […] 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 […]
      • 2012 February 14, Robert Nye, Falstaff: A Novel, Skyhorse, →ISBN:
        […] 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. […]
  11. (baseball, slang) A fastball.
  12. (countable) A distinct column of smoke, such as indicating a burning area or fire.
    • 1860, Randolph Barnes Marcy, The Prairie and Overland Traveller, page 203:
      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.
    • 1923, California Historical Society Quarterly, volume 2, page 152:
      […] 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.
    • 1941 January, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The Scottish Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 1:
      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.
    • 1957, Sylva: The Lands and Forests Review, volumes 13-14, page 43:
      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.
    • 2021 May 15, “Guadalupe Mountains National Park Temporarily Closes Backcountry Campsites due to Dog Fire”, in Guadalupe Mountains National Park News Releases‎[2]:
      The aerial reconnaissance did see active flame on heavy fuels (logs) and fine fuels (duff/understory), and several smokes.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
See smoke/translations § Noun.

Etymology 2

From Middle English smoken, from Old English smocian (“to smoke, emit smoke; fumigate”), from Proto-West Germanic *smokōn, from Proto-Germanic *smukōną (“to smoke”), ablaut derivative of Proto-Germanic *smaukaną (“to smoke”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mewg- (“to smoke”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian smookje (“to smoke”), West Frisian smoke (“to smoke”), Dutch smoken (“to smoke”), Low German smöken (“to smoke”), German Low German smoken (“to smoke”). Related also to Old English smēocan (“to smoke, emit smoke; fumigate”), Bavarian schmuckelen (“to smell bad, reek”).

Verb

smoke (third-person singular simple present smokes, present participle smoking, simple past smoked, past participle smoked or (rare, nonstandard) smoken)

  1. (transitive) To inhale and exhale the smoke from a burning cigarette, cigar, pipe, etc.
    He's smoking his pipe.
    Smoking a pipe has gone out of fashion.
    Olivia's dad smoked various brands when he was younger.
  2. (intransitive) To inhale and exhale tobacco smoke.
    Do you smoke?
  3. (intransitive) To give off smoke.
    My old truck was still smoking even after the repairs.
    • 1645, John Milton, L'Allegro:
      Hard by a cottage chimney smokes.
    1. (intransitive) Of a fire in a fireplace: to emit smoke outward instead of up the chimney, owing to imperfect draught.
  4. (transitive) To preserve or prepare (food) for consumption by treating with smoke.
    You'll need to smoke the meat for several hours.
  5. (transitive) To dry or medicate by smoke.
    • 2019, Thomas D. Seeley, The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild, page 64:
      After opening one of the hives from the back, he smoked the bees to calm them and to drive the queen toward the front of the hive.
  6. (transitive, obsolete) To fill or scent with smoke; hence, to fill with incense; to perfume.
  7. (transitive, obsolete) To make unclear or blurry.
    • 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts:
      Smoke your bits of glass,
      Ye loyal Swine, or her transfiguration
      Will blind your wondering eyes.
  8. (intransitive, slang, chiefly as present participle) To perform (e.g. music) energetically or skillfully.
    The horn section was really smokin' on that last tune.
  9. (slang) To beat someone at something.
    We smoked them at rugby.
    • 1987, Punch-Out!!, Nintendo, published 1990, Nintendo Entertainment System, level/area: Super Macho Man:
      Super Macho Man: 'I DON'T SMOKE... BUT TONIGHT I'M GONNA SMOKE YOU!'
    • 2023 September 28, HarryBlank, “Hooking Up”, in SCP Foundation‎[3], archived from the original on 25 May 2024:
      "He can weasel out if[sic] it." Ibanez massaged her knuckles. "He can say Couch welshed on a deal, and didn't show, and that's why Karen got got. It isn't conclusive. I have another thing I can lay on him, but even the two combined won't do. We need a third smoking gun if we're really gonna smoke this son of a bitch."
  10. (transitive, slang) To kill, especially with a gun.
    He got smoked by the mob.
    • 1993, Joseph T. Stanik, "Swift and Effective Retribution": The U.S. Sixth Fleet and the Confrontation with Qaddafi (The U.S. Navy in the Modern World Series; 3)‎[4], Naval Historical Center:
      Ordnancemen stenciled bombs with “greetings” on behalf of friends and loved ones back home or slogans playing on beer and cigarette advertisements, like “To Muammar: For all you do, this bomb's for you” or “I'd fly 10,000 miles to smoke a camel.”
    • 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 191:
      I had never met my father, and Precious's daddy had gotten smoked before she was even born.
  11. (transitive, slang, obsolete) To thrash; to beat.
  12. (obsolete, transitive) To smell out; to hunt out; to find out; to detect.
  13. (slang, obsolete, transitive) To ridicule to the face; to mock.
  14. To burn; to be kindled; to rage.
  15. To raise a dust or smoke by rapid motion.
    • 1697, Virgil, “Aeneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
      Proud of his steeds, he smokes along the field.
  16. To suffer severely; to be punished.
  17. (transitive, US military slang) To punish (a person) for a minor offense by excessive physical exercise.
  18. (transitive) To cover (a key blank) with soot or carbon to aid in seeing the marks made by impressioning.
Synonyms
  • (to inhale and exhale smoke from a burning cigarette): have a smoke
Derived terms
Descendants
  • Sranan Tongo: smoko
  • → Dutch: smoken
  • → Welsh: smocio
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

Anagrams

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old English smoca, from Proto-Germanic *smukô (“smoke, nebulous air”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈsmɔːk(ə)/

Noun

smoke (plural smokes or smokkes)

  1. smoke

Descendants

References

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