smoke
/smoʊk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.67 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The visible vapor/vapour, gases, and fine particles given off by burning or smoldering material.
Uncountable
noun
An instance of smoking a cigarette, cigar, etc.; the duration of this act.
Colloquial; Countable
noun
A fleeting illusion; something insubstantial, evanescent, unreal, transitory, or without result.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "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"
- "Hey, you got some smoke?"
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”), German Schmauch (“smoke (from a gun barrel)”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /smoʊk/
- British English: /sməʊk/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Law.