Adjacent Words

Vapor definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

VA'POR, n. [L. vapor.]
1. In a general sense, an invisible elastic fluid, rendered aeriform by heat, and capable of being condensed, or brought back to the liquid or solid state, by cold. The vapor of water is distinguished by the name of steam, which see.
2. A visible fluid floating in the atmosphere. All substances which impair the transparency of the atmosphere, as smoke, fog, etc. are in common language called vapors, though the term vapor is technical applied only to an invisible and condensible substance, as in No. 1; fog, etc. being vapor condensed, or water in a minute state of division. Vapor rising into the higher regions of the atmosphere, and condensed in large volumes, forms clouds.
3. Substances resembling smoke, which sometimes fill the atmosphere, particularly in America during the autumn.
4. Wind; flatulence.
5. Mental fume; vain imagination; unreal fancy.
6. Vapors, a disease of nervous debility, in which a variety of strange images float in the brain, or appear as if visible. Hence hypochondriacal affections and spleen are called vapors.
7. Something unsubstantial, fleeting or transitory.
For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. James 4.
VA'POR, v.i. [L. veporo.]
1. To pass off in fumes or a moist floating substance; to steam; to be exhaled; to evaporate. [In this sense, evaporate is generally used.]
2. To emit fumes.
Running water vapors not so much as standing water. [Little used.]
3. To bully; to boast or vaunt with a vain ostentatious display of worth; to brag.
[This is the most usual signification of the word.]
And what in real value's wanting, supply with vaporing and ranting.
VA'POR, v.t. To emit, cast off or scatter in fumes or stream; as, to vapor away a heated fluid.
Another sighing vapors forth his soul.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a visible suspension in the air of particles of some substance [syn: vapor, vapour]
2: the process of becoming a vapor [syn: vaporization, vaporisation, vapor, vapour, evaporation]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English vapour, from Anglo-French vapor, from Latin, steam, vapor Date: 14th century 1. diffused matter (as smoke or fog) suspended floating in the air and impairing its transparency 2. a. a substance in the gaseous state as distinguished from the liquid or solid state b. a substance (as gasoline, alcohol, mercury, or benzoin) vaporized for industrial, therapeutic, or military uses; also a mixture (as the explosive mixture in an internal combustion engine) of such a vapor with air 3. a. something unsubstantial or transitory ; phantasm b. a foolish or fanciful idea 4. plural a. archaic exhalations of bodily organs (as the stomach) held to affect the physical or mental condition b. a depressed or hysterical nervous condition II. intransitive verb (vapored; vaporing) Date: 15th century 1. a. to rise or pass off in vapor b. to emit vapor 2. to indulge in bragging, blustering, or idle talk • vaporer noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

US var. of VAPOUR.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Vapor Va"por, n. [OE. vapour, OF. vapour, vapor, vapeur, F. vapeur, L. vapor; probably for cvapor, and akin to Gr. ? smoke, ? to breathe forth, Lith. kvepti to breathe, smell, Russ. kopote fine soot. Cf. Vapid.] [Written also vapour.] 1. (Physics) Any substance in the gaseous, or a["e]riform, state, the condition of which is ordinarily that of a liquid or solid. Note: The term vapor is sometimes used in a more extended sense, as identical with gas; and the difference between the two is not so much one of kind as of degree, the latter being applied to all permanently elastic fluids except atmospheric air, the former to those elastic fluids which lose that condition at ordinary temperatures. The atmosphere contains more or less vapor of water, a portion of which, on a reduction of temperature, becomes condensed into liquid water in the form of rain or dew. The vapor of water produced by boiling, especially in its economic relations, is called steam. Vapor is any substance in the gaseous condition at the maximum of density consistent with that condition. This is the strict and proper meaning of the word vapor. --Nichol. 2. In a loose and popular sense, any visible diffused substance floating in the atmosphere and impairing its transparency, as smoke, fog, etc. The vapour which that fro the earth glood [glided]. --Chaucer. Fire and hail; snow and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling his word. --Ps. cxlviii. 8. 3. Wind; flatulence. [Obs.] --Bacon. 4. Something unsubstantial, fleeting, or transitory; unreal fancy; vain imagination; idle talk; boasting. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. --James iv. 14. 5. pl. An old name for hypochondria, or melancholy; the blues. ``A fit of vapors.'' --Pope. 6. (Pharm.) A medicinal agent designed for administration in the form of inhaled vapor. --Brit. Pharm. Vapor bath. (a) A bath in vapor; the application of vapor to the body, or part of it, in a close place; also, the place itself. (b) (Chem.) A small metallic drying oven, usually of copper, for drying and heating filter papers, precipitates, etc.; -- called also air bath. A modified form is provided with a jacket in the outside partition for holding water, or other volatile liquid, by which the temperature may be limited exactly to the required degree. Vapor burner, a burner for burning a vaporized hydrocarbon. Vapor density (Chem.), the relative weight of gases and vapors as compared with some specific standard, usually hydrogen, but sometimes air. The vapor density of gases and vaporizable substances as compared with hydrogen, when multiplied by two, or when compared with air and multiplied by 28.8, gives the molecular weight. Vapor engine, an engine worked by the expansive force of a vapor, esp. a vapor other than steam.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Vapor Va"por, v. t. To send off in vapor, or as if in vapor; as, to vapor away a heated fluid. [Written also vapour.] He'd laugh to see one throw his heart away, Another, sighing, vapor forth his soul. --B. Jonson.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Vapor Va"por, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Vapored; p. pr. & vb. n. Vaporing.] [From Vapor, n.: cf. L. vaporare.] [Written also vapour.] 1. To pass off in fumes, or as a moist, floating substance, whether visible or invisible, to steam; to be exhaled; to evaporate. 2. To emit vapor or fumes. [R.] Running waters vapor not so much as standing waters. --Bacon. 3. To talk idly; to boast or vaunt; to brag. Poets used to vapor much after this manner. --Milton. We vapor and say, By this time Matthews has beaten them. --Walpole.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

see vapour

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

va'-per:

(1) edh: "For he draweth up the drops of water, which distill in rain from his vapor" (Job 36:27); "There went up a mist ['edh] from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground" (Ge 2:6).

(2) nasi', "vapor," i.e. that which rises, from nasa', "to lift": "Who causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth" (Ps 135:7; compare Jer 10:13; 51:16); also translated "clouds": "as clouds and wind without rain" (Pr 25:14).

(3) In Job 36:33, the King James Version has "vapour" ("concerning the vapour") for `alah, alah, "to go up," where the Revised Version (British and American) reads "concerning the storm that cometh up."

(4) qiTor: "fire and hail, snow and vapor" (Ps 148:8); elsewhere, "smoke": "The smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace" (Ge 19:28); "I am become like a wineskin in the smoke" (Ps 119:83).

(5) atmis: "blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke" (Ac 2:19); "For ye are a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (Jas 4:14).

The first two of the preceding quotations are interesting as indicating the knowledge that vapor of water from the earth or sea is the source of the rain. Visible vapor, i.e. mist or fog, is much less common in Palestine than in many other countries. In the mountains, however, especially in Lebanon, mists are of frequent occurrence, appearing to those below as clouds clinging to the mountains.

Alfred Ely Day

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. n. 1. Gaseous state (of a substance ordinarily fluid or solid), aeriform state. 2. Fume, steam, reek, exhalation, smoke, fog, mist, rack. 3. Phantom, fantasy, whim, whimsey, vagary, day-dream, vain imagination, unreal fancy, dream, vision. II. v. n. Boast, brag, bluster, swagger, bully, faire claquer son fouet.

Moby Thesaurus

Barnumize, London fog, London special, Old Faithful, air, airy nothing, apparition, autism, babble, blabber, blather, blow, bluff, bluster, bluster and bluff, boast, boiling water, bombast, bounce, brag, brainchild, breathe out, bubble, bull, bullshit, bully, chimera, cloud, daydream, deception, delirium, deluded belief, delusion, depression, dereism, distemper, draw the longbow, dream, dream vision, dreamland, dreamworld, drisk, drivel, drizzling mist, drool, eidolon, emit, ether, evacuate, exhalation, exhale, exhaust, expire, false belief, fancy, fantasque, fantasy, fiction, figment, film, flourish, fog, frost smoke, fume, gabble, gas, gasconade, gauze, geyser, gibber, gibble-gabble, give off, give out, give vent to, hallucination, haze, hector, hot spring, hot water, hypochondria, hysteria, idle fancy, ignis fatuus, illusion, imagery, imagination, imagining, inflate, insubstantial image, intimidate, invention, jabber, lay it on, let out, maggot, make-believe, misbelief, misconception, mist, morbidity, myth, nervousness, open the floodgates, open the sluices, out-herod Herod, pea soup, pea-soup fog, peasouper, phantasm, phantom, piffle, pile it on, pipe dream, pontificate, prate, prattle, puff, rage, rant, rattle, rave, reek, rheuminess, roister, rollick, romance, self-deceit, self-deception, self-delusion, shadow, sick fancy, slang, smog, smoke, speak for Buncombe, spirit, splutter, sputter, steam, storm, swagger, swashbuckle, talk big, talk highfalutin, talk nonsense, the pip, thermae, thick-coming fancies, thin air, throw off, trick, trip, twaddle, twattle, vaunt, vision, waffle, whim, whimsy, wildest dreams, wrong impression