smoke out
Britishverb
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to subject to smoke in order to drive out of hiding
-
to bring into the open; expose to the public
they smoked out the plot
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.
“Rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to smoke out intentional discrimination,” the EEOC’s historical approach contemplates “liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone,” the OLC opinion explains.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
Keeping smoke out of one individual’s lungs is a small benefit compared to keeping smoking out of the public eye.
From Slate ● May 15, 2026
Police and firefighters fenced off the area and a beekeeper was called in to smoke out the bees - a safe way to calm the insects.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2025
Near the coast, the Palisades fire chewed through the Santa Monica Mountains and reduced dream houses with Pacific views to their foundations, sending a jetstream of smoke out to the ocean.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2025
Zooey tried to laugh it off after she’d opened the windows and brought the fan from Charlie’s bedroom into the kitchen to help blow the smoke out.
From "We Are the Ants" by Shaun David Hutchinson
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.
