smokestack
Americannoun
adjective
noun
Etymology
Origin of smokestack
Explanation
The chimney on top of a factory or a ship can be called a smokestack. If you look at Google Images for the word "pollution," you'll see lots of pictures of smokestacks spewing thick, gray smoke. The main difference between the words chimney and smokestack is that you're more likely to call the flue on top of your house a chimney, saving smokestack for more industrial uses. Steam locomotives used smokestacks to release smoke and steam — the exhaust from the train's smokebox. Without the smokestack, the pressure would become dangerously high inside the train, causing it to explode.
Vocabulary lists containing smokestack
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
At the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro where damage included a partially collapsed smokestack, the local government said that nine people were unaccounted for.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Whatever “industrials” means in the modern sense, “it isn’t smokestack industries,” said Interactive Brokers Chief Strategist Steves Sosnick.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 24, 2026
Or perhaps Inland Empire residents can recognize home from the towering Santa Fe smokestack.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026
“They’re going to look like an Amazon distribution warehouse; there’s no smokestack and massive tailings pond next to it.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026
I sit for several minutes, frustration rising into my smokestack of a brain.
From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
