Often fumes. any smokelike or vaporous exhalation from matter or substances, especially of an odorous or harmful nature: tobacco fumes; noxious fumes of carbon monoxide.
an irritable or angry mood: He has been in a fume ever since the contract fell through.
verb (used with object),fumed,fum·ing.
to emit or exhale, as fumes or vapor: giant stacks fuming their sooty smoke.
to treat with or expose to fumes.
to show fretful irritation or anger: She always fumes when the mail is late.
verb (used without object),fumed,fum·ing.
to rise, or pass off, as fumes: smoke fuming from an ashtray.
to emit fumes: The leaky pipe fumed alarmingly.
Origin of fume
1350–1400;Middle English < Old Frenchfum < Latinfūmus smoke, steam, fume
Related formsfume·less, adjectivefume·like, adjectivefum·er, nounfum·ing·ly, adverbun·fum·ing, adjective
late 14c., from Old French fum "smoke, steam, vapor, breath," from Latin fumus "smoke, steam, fume" (source of Italian fumo, Spanish humo), from PIE *dheu- (cf. Sanskrit dhumah, Old Church Slavonic dymu, Lithuanian dumai, Old Prussian dumis "smoke," Middle Irish dumacha "fog," Greek thymos "spirit, mind, soul").
fume
v.
c.1400, "to fumigate," from Old French fumer, from Latin fumare "to smoke, steam," from fumus "smoke, steam, fume" (see fume (n.)). Figurative sense of "show anger" is first recorded 1520s. Related: Fumed; fumes; fuming.
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