smoke

n. [ AS. smoca, fr. smeócan to smoke; akin to LG. & D. smook smoke, Dan. smög, G. schmauch, and perh. to Gr. &unr_;&unr_;&unr_; to burn in a smoldering fire; cf. Lith. smaugti to choke. ] 1. The visible exhalation, vapor, or substance that escapes, or expelled, from a burning body, especially from burning vegetable matter, as wood, coal, peat, or the like. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ The gases of hydrocarbons, raised to a red heat or thereabouts, without a mixture of air enough to produce combustion, disengage their carbon in a fine powder, forming smoke. The disengaged carbon when deposited on solid bodies is soot. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. That which resembles smoke; a vapor; a mist. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Anything unsubstantial, as idle talk. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. The act of smoking, esp. of smoking tobacco; as, to have a smoke. [ Colloq. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Smoke is sometimes joined with other word. forming self-explaining compounds; as, smoke-consuming, smoke-dried, smoke-stained, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

Smoke arch, the smoke box of a locomotive. --
Smoke ball (Mil.), a ball or case containing a composition which, when it burns, sends forth thick smoke. --
Smoke black, lampblack. [ Obs. ] --
Smoke board, a board suspended before a fireplace to prevent the smoke from coming out into the room. --
Smoke box, a chamber in a boiler, where the smoke, etc., from the furnace is collected before going out at the chimney. --
Smoke sail (Naut.), a small sail in the lee of the galley stovepipe, to prevent the smoke from annoying people on deck. --
Smoke tree (Bot.), a shrub (Rhus Cotinus) in which the flowers are mostly abortive and the panicles transformed into tangles of plumose pedicels looking like wreaths of smoke. --
To end in smoke, to burned; hence, to be destroyed or ruined; figuratively, to come to nothing. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Fume; reek; vapor. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. 1. To apply smoke to; to hang in smoke; to disinfect, to cure, etc., by smoke; as, to smoke or fumigate infected clothing; to smoke beef or hams for preservation. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To fill or scent with smoke; hence, to fill with incense; to perfume. “Smoking the temple.” Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To smell out; to hunt out; to find out; to detect. [ 1913 Webster ]

I alone
Smoked his true person, talked with him. Chapman. [ 1913 Webster ]

He was first smoked by the old Lord Lafeu. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Upon that . . . I began to smoke that they were a parcel of mummers. Addison. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. To ridicule to the face; to quiz. [ Old Slang ] [ 1913 Webster ]

5. To inhale and puff out the smoke of, as tobacco; to burn or use in smoking; as, to smoke a pipe or a cigar. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. To subject to the operation of smoke, for the purpose of annoying or driving out; -- often with out; as, to smoke a woodchuck out of his burrow. [ 1913 Webster ]

[ 1913 Webster ]

. Same as Puffball. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

v. t. To dry by or in smoke. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A building where meat or fish is cured by subjecting it to a dense smoke. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A contrivance for turning a spit by means of a fly or wheel moved by the current of ascending air in a chimney. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Making or having no smoke. “Smokeless towers.” Pope. [ 1913 Webster ]

. A high-explosive gunpowder whose explosion produces little, if any, smoke. It is usually based on guncotton (nitrocellulose). [ Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC ]