vapour

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English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old French, from Latin vapor (“steam, heat”)

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

vapour (countable and uncountable, plural vapours)

  1. Cloudy diffused matter such as mist, steam or fumes suspended in the air.
    • 1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, The Lonely Pyramid:
      The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. […] Drifts of yellow vapour, fiery, parching, stinging, filled the air.
  2. The gaseous state of a substance that is normally a solid or liquid.
  3. (obsolete) Wind; flatulence.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)
  4. Something unsubstantial, fleeting, or transitory; unreal fancy; vain imagination; idle talk; boasting.
    • Bible, James iv. 14
      For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
  5. (archaic) Hypochondria; melancholy; the blues; hysteria, or other nervous disorder.
  6. (dated) Any medicinal agent designed for administration in the form of inhaled vapour.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Brit. Pharm to this entry?)

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

steam — see steam
vapor — see vapor

See also[edit]

Verb[edit]

vapour (third-person singular simple present vapours, present participle vapouring, simple past and past participle vapoured)

  1. (intransitive) To become vapour; to be emitted or circulated as vapour.
  2. (transitive) To turn into vapour.
    to vapour away a heated fluid
    • Ben Jonson
      He'd laugh to see one throw his heart away, / Another, sighing, vapour forth his soul.
  3. (intransitive) To use insubstantial language; to boast or bluster.
    • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Bisara of Pooree’, Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio Society 2005, p. 172:
      He vapoured, and fretted, and fumed, and trotted up and down, and tried to make himself pleasing in Miss Hollis's big, quiet, grey eyes, and failed.
    • 1904, “Saki”, ‘Reginald's Christmas Revel’, Reginald:
      then the Major gave us a graphic account of a struggle he had with a wounded bear. I privately wished that the bears would win sometimes on these occasions; at least they wouldn't go vapouring about it afterwards.
    • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia, Faber & Faber 1992 (Avignon Quintet), p. 513:
      He felt he would start vapouring with devotion if this went on, so he bruptly took his leave with a cold expression on his face which dismayed her for she thought that it was due to distain for her artistic opinions.
  4. To emit vapour or fumes.
    • Francis Bacon
      Running waters vapour not so much as standing waters.

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

vapour (third-person singular simple present vapours, present participle vapouring, simple past and past participle vapoured)

  1. (intransitive) To become vapour; to be emitted or circulated as vapour.
  2. (transitive) To turn into vapour.
  3. (intransitive) To use insubstantial language; to boast or bluster.
    • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Bisara of Pooree’, Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio Society 2005, p. 172:
      He vapoured, and fretted, and fumed, and trotted up and down, and tried to make himself pleasing in Miss Hollis's big, quiet, grey eyes, and failed.
    • 1904, “Saki”, ‘Reginald's Christmas Revel’, Reginald:
      then the Major gave us a graphic account of a struggle he had with a wounded bear. I privately wished that the bears would win sometimes on these occasions; at least they wouldn't go vapouring about it afterwards.
    • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia, Faber
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