Smoke n.
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.
Note: ☞ 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.
2. That which resembles smoke; a vapor; a mist.
3. Anything unsubstantial, as idle talk.
4. The act of smoking, esp. of smoking tobacco; as, to have a smoke. [Colloq.]
Note: ☞ Smoke is sometimes joined with other word. forming self-explaining compounds; as, smoke-consuming, smoke-dried, smoke-stained, etc.
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.
Syn: -- Fume; reek; vapor.
Ve·ne·tian a. Of or pertaining to Venice in Italy.
Venetian blind, a blind for windows, doors, etc., made of thin slats, either fixed at a certain angle in the shutter, or movable, and in the latter case so disposed as to overlap each other when closed, and to show a series of open spaces for the admission of air and light when in other positions.
Venetian carpet, an inexpensive carpet, used for passages and stairs, having a woolen warp which conceals the weft; the pattern is therefore commonly made up of simple stripes.
Venetian chalk, a white compact talc or steatite, used for marking on cloth, etc.
Venetian door Arch., a door having long, narrow windows or panes of glass on the sides.
Venetian glass, a kind of glass made by the Venetians, for decorative purposes, by the combination of pieces of glass of different colors fused together and wrought into various ornamental patterns.
Venetian red, a brownish red color, prepared from sulphate of iron; -- called also scarlet ocher.
Venetian soap. See Castile soap, under Soap.
Venetian sumac Bot., a South European tree (Rhus Cotinus) which yields the yellow dyewood called fustet; -- also called smoke tree.
Venetian window Arch., a window consisting of a main window with an arched head, having on each side a long and narrow window with a square head.
Wig n.
1. A covering for the head, consisting of hair interwoven or united by a kind of network, either in imitation of the natural growth, or in abundant and flowing curls, worn to supply a deficiency of natural hair, or for ornament, or according to traditional usage, as a part of an official or professional dress, the latter especially in England by judges and barristers.
2. An old seal; -- so called by fishermen.
Wig tree. Bot. See Smoke tree, under Smoke.
smoke tree
n 1: any of several shrubs or shrubby trees of the genus Cotinus
[syn: smoke bush]
2: grayish-green shrub of desert regions of southwestern United
States nd Mexico having sparse foliage and terminal spikes
of bluish violet flowers; locally important as source of a
light-colored honey of excellent flavor [syn: Dalea
spinosa]