chain smoker

Idioms  

1. One who smokes continually by lighting a new cigarette from the one being finished, as in Before they forbade smoking, bridge tournaments often attracted players who are chain smokers. [c. 1930]

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Example Sentences

The books, he said, described his brother as a chain smoker, someone who honed his skills in Cairo and reported from Vietnam — none of which is true.

From New York Times • Feb. 18, 2024

Associates described him as a bespectacled chain smoker, reserved, not a backslapper.

From Washington Post • Jun. 27, 2018

Sheikh Khamis al-Hasnawi, a Sunni wise man of the Albu Issa tribe in Iraq, was a chain smoker, regal in demeanor, always clad in a flowing white robe with gold trim.

From New York Times • May 26, 2018

I remember the old chairman was a great chain smoker and I would say: 'Can you give me a list of players you've got?'.

From The Guardian • May 17, 2013

Other countries, he says, "have a hard time taking instructions from a chain smoker to quit smoking and to help us keep others from starting to smoke."

From Time Magazine Archive