vaporous

[vey-per-uhs]

adjective

1. having the form or characteristics of vapor.

   a vaporous cloud.

2. full of or abounding in vapor; foggy; misty.

   a vaporous twilight.

3. producing or giving off vapor.

   a vaporous bog.

4. dimmed or obscured with vapor.

   a low valley surrounded by vaporous mountains.

5. unsubstantial; diaphanous; airy.

   vaporous fabrics; vaporous breezes.

6. vaguely formed, fanciful, or unreliable.

   vaporous promises.

vaporous

/ ˈveɪpərəs, ˌveɪpəˈrɒsɪtɪ /

adjective

1. resembling or full of vapour

2. another word for vaporific

3. lacking permanence or substance; ephemeral or fanciful

4. given to foolish imaginings

5. dulled or obscured by an atmosphere of vapour

Other Word Forms

• vaporously adverb
• vaporousness noun
• vaporosity noun
• nonvaporosity noun
• nonvaporous adjective
• nonvaporously adverb
• nonvaporousness noun
• unvaporosity noun
• unvaporous adjective
• unvaporously adverb
• unvaporousness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of vaporous¹

First recorded in 1520–30; vapor + -ous

Example Sentences

Movie scripts, like vexed suitors, struggle to pin down a vaporous lover.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

In Malofeev’s subjugating hands, Janácek’s vaporously evocative “In the Mists” became “In the Thick, Disorienting and Blinding Fog” and led, without a pause, into Liszt’s doomed and drummed “Funérailles,” creating an extraordinary sonic vista.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“Whatever’s wrong with me, I will take to bed,” Cain begins in a slow, vaporous falsetto.

Read more on New York Times

Loftus regarded so-called recovered memories as concoctions “spun not from solid facts but from the vaporous breezes of wishes, dreams, fears, desires.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

"We let the biology do the harder job of converting information about vaporous chemicals into an electrical neural signal," Raman said.

Read more on Science Daily