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Vapour   Listen
noun
Vapor  n.  (Written also vapour)  
1.
(Physics) Any substance in the gaseous, or aeriform, 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."
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)." "Fire and hail; snow and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling his word."
3.
Wind; flatulence. (Obs.)
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."
5.
pl. An old name for hypochondria, or melancholy; the blues. "A fit of vapors."
6.
(Pharm.) A medicinal agent designed for administration in the form of inhaled vapor.
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.


verb
Vapor  v. t.  (Written also vapour)  To send off in vapor, or as if in vapor; as, to vapor away a heated fluid. "He'd laugh to see one throw his heart away, Another, sighing, vapor forth his soul."


Vapor  v. i.  (past & past part. vapored; pres. part. vaporing)  (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."
3.
To talk idly; to boast or vaunt; to brag. "Poets used to vapor much after this manner." "We vapor and say, By this time Matthews has beaten them."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Vapour" Quotes from Famous Books



... tobacco, sprinkled on the leaves and branches while the fruit is ripening. Or take a chafing-dish of burning charcoal, place it under the branches of the bush or tree, and throw on it a little brimstone. The vapour of the sulphur, and the suffocating fume arising from the charcoal, will not only destroy all the insects, but prevent the plants from being infested with them any more that season. Black cankers, which commit great devastation among turnips, are ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... said, "we will risk a bit of fire again, for the cold pierces to the bone; only be sure that you use perfectly dry wood. Examine each piece to see that no drip from the roof has penetrated it. If it is dry it will give but little smoke, and a slight vapour is not likely to be observed rising from the top of ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... ye see 'twas nae daft vapour, But I maturely thought it proper, When a' my works I did review, To dedicate them, Sir, to you: Because (ye need na tak it ill) I thought ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the flame were placed in the path of the light, the black D line is intensified. He also found that, if he used a limelight instead of the sunlight and passed it through the flame with salt, the spectrum showed the D line black; or the vapour of sodium absorbs the same light that it radiates. This proved to him the existence of sodium in the sun's atmosphere.[4] Iron, calcium, and other elements were soon detected ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... dark labyrinth of the ages, epoch succeeds to epoch, and period to period, each looming more gigantic in its outlines and more shadowy in its features, as it rises, dimly revealed, from the mist and vapour of an older and ever-older past. It is useless to add century to century or millennium to millennium. When we pass a certain boundary-line, which, after all, is reached very soon, figures cease to convey to our finite faculties any real notion ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson


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