smoke
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A cloud of fine particles suspended in a gas.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
smohkIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsmoʊk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A cloud of fine particles suspended in a gas
uncountable
The visible vapor/vapour, gases, and fine particles given off by burning or smoldering material.
colloquialcountablenever plural
An instance of smoking a cigarette, cigar, etc.; the duration of this act.
uncountable
Any cloud of solid particles or liquid vapor dispersed into the air; particularly one of
countable
A distinct column of smoke, such as indicating a burning area or fire.
Opaque aerosol released on a battlefield, used e.g. to signal or to degrade enemy observation via smokescreen.
verb
transitive
To inhale and exhale the smoke from a burning cigarette, cigar, pipe, etc.
intransitive
Of tobacco: to give off or produce smoke (in a certain manner or of a certain type).
intransitive
Of a fire in a fireplace: to emit smoke outward instead of up the chimney, owing to imperfect draught.
To burn; to be kindled; to rage.
To suffer severely; to be punished.
transitive
To cover (a key blank) with soot or carbon to aid in seeing the marks made by impressioning.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A cloud of fine particles suspended in a gas
Used this way, smoke is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use smoke
- “The fire produced a tower of black smoke that could be seen for miles.”noun
- “His dreams all turned to smoke.”noun
- “With all that smoke there must be a fire somewhere.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The act of smoking tobacco or other substances.
A person who smokes tobacco.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Marked by or emitting or filled with smoke.
Emitting or containing little or no smoke.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any of several shrubs or shrubby trees of the genus Cotinus.
Eel cured by smoking.
Haddock usually baked but sometimes broiled with lots of butter.
A dried and smoked herring having a reddish color.
Mackerel cured by smoking.
Salmon cured by smoking.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An explosive (trade name Ballistite) that burns with relatively little smoke.
Shrubby tree of southern United States having large plumes of feathery flowers resembling puffs of smoke.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: cloud of fine particles suspended in a gas
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.