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Definition of smoke in English


Syllabification: (smoke)
Pronunciation: /smōk/
Translate smoke | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish


  • a visible suspension of carbon or other particles in air, typically one emitted from a burning substance:bonfire smoke
  • an act of smoking tobacco:I’m dying for a smoke
  • informal a cigarette or cigar.


  • 1 [no object] emit smoke or visible vapor:heat the oil until it just smokes (as adjective smoking)they huddled around his smoking fire in the winter damp
  • inhale and exhale the smoke of tobacco or a drug:Janine was sitting at the kitchen table smoking (as noun smoking)the effect of smoking on health [with object]:he smoked forty cigarettes a day
  • 2 [with object] (often as adjective smoked) cure or preserve (meat or fish) by exposure to smoke:smoked salmon
  • treat (glass) so as to darken it:the smoked glass of his lenses
  • fumigate, cleanse, or purify by exposure to smoke.
  • subdue (insects, especially bees) by exposing them to smoke.
  • (smoke someone/something out) drive someone or something out of a place by using smoke:we will fire the roof and smoke him out
  • (smoke someone out) force someone to make something known:as the press smokes him out on other human rights issues, he will be revealed as a social conservative
  • 3 [with object] North American informal kill (someone) by shooting.
  • defeat overwhelmingly in a fight or contest.
  • 4 [with object] archaic make fun of (someone):we baited her and smoked her


blow smoke

try to mislead or threaten someone by giving false or exaggerated information:the coach has been blowing smoke for the past three years about our program

go up in smoke

informal be destroyed by fire.
(of a plan) come to nothing:more than one dream is about to go up in smoke

where there's smoke there's fire

proverb there’s always some reason for a rumor.

smoke and mirrors

North American the obscuring or embellishing of the truth of a situation with misleading or irrelevant information:the budget process is an exercise in smoke and mirrors
[with reference to illusion created by magic tricks]

smoke like a chimney

smoke tobacco incessantly.



(also smokeable) adjective


Old English smoca (noun), smocian (verb), from the Germanic base of smēocan 'emit smoke'; related to Dutch smook and German Schmauch

smoke in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of smoke in the British & World English dictionary
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