Wiktionary

vapor

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English vapour, from Anglo-Norman vapour, Old French vapor, from Latin vapor (“steam, heat”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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vapor (countable and uncountable, plural vapors) (American spelling)

  1. Cloudy diffused matter such as mist, steam or fumes suspended in the air.
    • 1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in 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.
    • 2013 July-August, Philip J. Bushnell, “Solvents, Ethanol, Car Crashes & Tolerance”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
      Surprisingly, this analysis revealed that acute exposure to solvent vapors at concentrations below those associated with long-term effects appears to increase the risk of a fatal automobile accident. Furthermore, this increase in risk is comparable to the risk of death from leukemia after long-term exposure to benzene, another solvent, which has the well-known property of causing this type of cancer.
  3. Something insubstantial, fleeting, or transitory; unreal fancy; vain imagination; idle talk; boasting.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, James 4:14:
      For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
    • 1781, Horace Walpole, " ":
      I am at this present very sick of my little vapour of fame.
    • 1822, Charles Perkins, An Oration, page 19:
      The press operates as a safety-valve for the vapor of popular ebullision.
    • 1875, Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude, page 80:
      The previous question had turned the attention to life as something peculiarly frail, and as of such a nature that no calculation could be based on its permanence. This expression gives a reason for that, to wit, that it is a mere vapor.
    • 1999, Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, page 50:
      Here we can explain only in these broad outlines why the asking of the question of being is in itself through and through historical, and why, accordingly, our question as to whether being will remain a mere vapor for us or become the destiny of the West is anything but an exaggeration and a rhetorical figure.
  4. (dated) Any medicinal agent designed for administration in the form of inhaled vapour.
    • 1836, Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, Charles Cowan, Pathological Researches on Phthisis, page 287:
      Sulphurous fumes have also been recommended, as well as diffusing a variety of vapors in the apartment of the patient; on their beneficial or injurious effects we are unable to speak.
    • 1854 November, Samuel A. Cartwright, “The Case of a Lady in a sugar-house, with Aphonic, Haemorrhagic, Tubercular Phthisis in the Softening State”, in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, volume 51, number 14, page 275:
      Hence the vapor, so useful in expanding the compressed tissues and enabling the air to permeate and expand the contracted parenchyma in consumption, causes a sensation of great fatigue in asthma.
    • 1861, Charles Mathews, On fumigation of the lungs, throat, &c, page 1:
      Professor Matthews has at length the pleasure, after much unaboidable delay, of respectfully announcin to the Faculty, that he is prepared to fill their prescriptions by any practicable formula, in the use of his new method of applying medicinal vapors to the lungs, air-passages, & c., by means of the Multiform Fumigator .
    • 1944, Quarterly Review of Otorhinolaryngology and Broncho-esophagology, page 68:
      The physician can now prescribe medicinal vapors to be dropped on some cotton placed inside the inhaler.
  5. (archaic, in the plural) Hypochondria; melancholy; the blues; hysteria, or other nervous disorder.
    • Jan 13, 1732, John Arbuthnot, letter to Jonathan Swift
      He talks me into a fit of vapours twice or thrice a week.
    • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 188:
      She made several gulps and controlled her breath. She released her grip on Podson and stared at him without recognition. Podson went on patting her reassuringly, relieved from administering first aid to an attack of the vapours.
  6. (obsolete) Wind; flatulence.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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vapor (third-person singular simple present vapors, present participle vaporing, simple past and past participle vapored) (American spelling)

  1. (intransitive) To become vapor; to be emitted or circulated as vapor.
  2. (transitive) To turn into vapor.
    to vapor away a heated fluid
    • 1617, Ben Jonson, Lovers Made Men:
      He'd […] laugh to see one throw his heart away, / Another, sighing, vapour forth his soul.
  3. To emit vapor or fumes.
    • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
      Running waters vapour not so much as standing waters.
  4. (intransitive) To use insubstantial language; to boast or bluster.
    • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, “The Bisara of Pooree”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio Society, published 2005, page 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.
    • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 1, in Billy Budd‎[1], London: Constable & Co.:
      […] an amusing character all but extinct now, but occasionally to be encountered […] vaporing in the groggeries along the tow-path.
    • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 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.
  5. (transitive) To give (someone) the vapors; to depress, to bore.
    • 1782, Frances Burney, Cecilia, III.vi.9:
      “I only mean,” cried she, giddily, “that he might have some place a little more pleasant to live in, for really that old moat and draw-bridge are enough to vapour him to death […].”

Translations

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See also

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Anagrams

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Albanian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Italian vapore.[1]

Noun

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vapor m (plural vapori, definite vaporë)

  1. steamboat, steamship
    Synonym: avullore
  2. (archaic) steam engine; steam locomotive[2]

References

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  1. ^ Dashi, B. (2013) “vapore”, in Italianismi nella lingua albanese (in Italian), Edizioni Nuova Cultura, →ISBN, page 442
  2. ^ Rossi, F. (1866) “vapore, macchina, di terra”, in Vocabolario italiano-epirotico con tavola sinottica (in Italian), page 923

Further reading

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  • “vapor”, in FGJSSH: Fjalor i gjuhës së sotme shqipe‎[2] (in Albanian), 1980

Asturian

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Etymology

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From Latin vapor.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /baˈpoɾ/, [baˈpoɾ]

Noun

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vapor m (plural vapores)

  1. vapor

Catalan

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin vapōrem.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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vapor m (plural vapors)

  1. vapor, steam

Derived terms

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Further reading

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Galician

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Etymology

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From Latin vapor.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /baˈpoɾ/ [baˈpoɾ]
  • Rhymes: -oɾ
  • Hyphenation: va‧por

Noun

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vapor m (plural vapores)

  1. vapor
    Synonym: gas

Further reading

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Ladino

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Noun

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vapor m (Latin spelling)

  1. ship, steamer

Latin

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Etymology

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From Proto-Italic *kwapōs, of uncertain ultimate origin, but possibly related to Ancient Greek καπνός (kapnós, “smoke”) and Proto-Indo-European *kʷep- (“to smoke, boil, move violently”),[1] via an older form *quapor that eventually lost its velar.[2] See also hope.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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vapor m (genitive vapōris); third declension

  1. steam, exhalation, vapour; smoke
  2. warm exhalation, warmth, heat
  3. ardour of love, warmth

Declension

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Third-declension noun.

singular plural
nominative vapor vapōrēs
genitive vapōris vapōrum
dative vapōrī vapōribus
accusative vapōrem vapōrēs
ablative vapōre vapōribus
vocative vapor vapōrēs

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • Asturian: vapor
  • Catalan: vapor
  • → English: vapor
  • French: vapeur
  • Galician: vapor
  • Italian: vapore
  • Portuguese: vapor
  • Romanian: vapor
  • Spanish: vapor

References

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  • “vapor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “vapor”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • vapor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  1. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “vapor”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 654
  2. ^ Colarusso, Further Etymologies Between Indo-European and Northwest Caucasian

Middle English

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Noun

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vapor

  1. Alternative form of vapour

Old French

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Noun

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vapor oblique singular, f (oblique plural vapors, nominative singular vapor, nominative plural vapors)

  1. Alternative form of vapeur

Piedmontese

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Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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vapor m (plural vapor)

  1. vapor, steam

Portuguese

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Etymology

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Learned borrowing from Latin vapōrem.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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vapor m (plural vapores)

  1. vapor / vapour

Derived terms

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Further reading

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  • “vapor” in Dicionário Aberto based on Novo Diccionário da Língua Portuguesa de Cândido de Figueiredo, 1913

Anagrams

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Romanian

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Etymology

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From Italian vapore, French vapeur.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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vapor n (plural vapoare)

  1. boat, ship

Declension

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Declension of vapor
singular plural
indefinite articulation definite articulation indefinite articulation definite articulation
nominative/accusative (un) vapor vaporul (niște) vapoare vapoarele
genitive/dative (unui) vapor vaporului (unor) vapoare vapoarelor
vocative vaporule vapoarelor

Spanish

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Etymology

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From Latin vapor.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /baˈpoɾ/ [baˈpoɾ]
  • Rhymes: -oɾ
  • Syllabification: va‧por

Noun

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vapor m (plural vapores)

  1. steam, vapor (water vapor)
  2. steamboat
    • 1918, Carlos Gagini, “A París”, in Cuentos grises:
      turistas recién llegados, en cuyas valijas habían pegado sus marbetes azules, blancos o rosados todas las compañías de vapores o de ferrocarriles
      newly-arrived tourists, who had their suitcases stuck with blue, white and pink labels of all the steamboat and railway companies

Derived terms

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Further reading

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