Dictionary
va•por
Pronunciation: (vā'pur), [key]—
n.
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.
a. a strange, senseless, or fantastic notion.
b. something insubstantial or transitory.
7. vapors, Archaic.
a. mental depression or hypochondria.
b. injurious exhalations formerly supposed to be produced within the body, esp. in the stomach.
—
v.t.
1. to cause to rise or pass off in, or as if in, vapor; vaporize.
2. Archaic.to affect with vapors; depress.
—
v.i.
1. to rise or pass off in the form of vapor.
2. to emit vapor or exhalations.
3. to talk or act grandiloquently, pompously, or boastfully; bluster.
Also, esp. Brit.,vapour.Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
