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vapors - 3 dictionary results
va⋅por
[vey-per]
–noun
| 1. | a visible exhalation, as fog, mist, steam, smoke, or noxious gas, diffused through or suspended in the air: the vapors rising from the bogs. |
| 2. | Physics. a gas at a temperature below its critical temperature. |
| 3. | a substance converted into vapor for technical or medicinal uses. |
| 4. | a combination of a vaporized substance and air. |
| 5. | gaseous particles of drugs that can be inhaled as a therapeutic agent. |
| 6. | Archaic.
|
| 7. | vapors, Archaic.
|
–verb (used with object)
| 8. | to cause to rise or pass off in, or as if in, vapor; vaporize. |
| 9. | Archaic. to affect with vapors; depress. |
–verb (used without object)
| 10. | to rise or pass off in the form of vapor. |
| 11. | to emit vapor or exhalations. |
| 12. | to talk or act grandiloquently, pompously, or boastfully; bluster. |
Also, especially British, vapour.
Origin:
1325–75; ME vapour < L vapor steam
1325–75; ME vapour < L vapor steam

Related forms:
va⋅por⋅a⋅ble, adjective
va⋅por⋅a⋅bil⋅i⋅ty, noun
va⋅por⋅er, noun
va⋅por⋅less, adjective
va⋅por⋅like, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source
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Link To vapors
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
vapor (vā'pər) Pronunciation Key
vaporize verb Our Living Language : The words vapor and steam usually call to mind a fine mist, such as that in the jet of water droplets near the spout of a boiling teakettle or in a bathroom after a shower. Vapor and steam, however, refer to the gaseous state of a substance. The fumes that arise when volatile substances such as alcohol and gasoline evaporate, for example, are vapors. The visible stream of water droplets rushing out of a teakettle spout is not steam. As the gaseous state of water heated past its boiling point, steam is invisible. Usually, there is a space of an inch or two between the spout and the beginning of the stream of droplets. This space contains steam. The steam loses its heat to the surrounding air, then falls below the boiling point and condenses in the air as water droplets. All liquids and solids give off vapors consisting of molecules that have evaporated from the substance. In a closed system, the vapor pressure of these molecules reaches an equilibrium at which the substance evaporates from the liquid (or solid) and recondenses on it in equal amounts. |
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Copyright © 2009, Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.

