smolder
Americanverb (used without object)
-
smolders,
present (3rd person singular)
-
smoldered,
past participle, past
-
smoldering
present participle
-
to burn without flame; undergo slow or suppressed combustion.
-
to exist or continue in a suppressed state or without outward demonstration.
Hatred smoldered beneath a polite surface.
-
to display repressed feelings, as of indignation, anger, or the like.
to smolder with rage.
noun
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dense smoke resulting from slow or suppressed combustion.
-
a smoldering fire.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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smoldersimple
-
smolderssimple
-
have smolderedperfect
-
has smolderedperfect
-
am smolderingprogressive
-
are smolderingprogressive
-
is smolderingprogressive
-
have been smolderingperfect progressive
-
has been smolderingperfect progressive
Past
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smolderedsimple
-
had smolderedperfect
-
was smolderingprogressive
-
were smolderingprogressive
-
had been smolderingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of smolder
1275–1325; (noun) Middle English smolder smoky vapor, dissimilated variant of smorther smother; (v.) Middle English (as present participle smolderende ), derivative of the noun
Explanation
When a fire is barely burning, it's smoldering. Fires can smolder for days without anyone's knowing, then burst into a conflagration that gets the fire department sirens wailing all over town. Smolder is a word that is often used figuratively to describe situations or people's feelings. You might say tensions between the North and South smoldered for years before the outbreak of the Civil War. And if your school cafeteria eliminates tater tots from the menu, students' smoldering dissatisfaction with the menu options might erupt into all-out food fight.
Vocabulary lists containing smolder
List 8
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Hatchet
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Touching Spirit Bear
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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.
See Examples For:
Instead of racing through trees and vegetation, these fires smolder through dried wetland soils and large deposits of peat, often continuing underground at relatively low temperatures.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 6, 2026
Chandler flexes the charisma that made his “Friday Night Lights” father figure Coach Taylor such an indelible figure, while Pierre’s buttoned-down smolder slowly simmers the tension between them.
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026
As a result, they may overlook slower, less visible fires that smolder deep within peat and organic soils.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 4, 2026
Passions still smolder below the surface, but there is not enough oxygen to let them flame into life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 7, 2026
Malia had said to me and Barack, her embarrassment already beginning to smolder as we rode the elevator downstairs.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
In Kim Eunho’s 1927 ink and color painting on silk, “Woman Reading the Fortune of the Day,” a hostess in traditional hanbok dress whiles away her break with gaming tiles as a cigarette smolders nearby.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 6, 2026
And Loren Kramar, an up-and-coming orchestral singer-songwriter, smolders through Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 9, 2025
“A holdover fire is a fire that smolders undetectably,” Martin said in a statement.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 24, 2023
Elliot smolders, barely contained by a cravat, whether blocking the path when Anne is on a walk with her family, or entering a room.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2022
The trees seethe and the house smolders, and standing in the gravel of the driveway, the daylight nearly finished, the locksmith has an unsettling thought: Someone might be coming for us.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
The WSJ Logistics Report’s Liz Young writes that the fire started June 17 at the 500,000-square-foot, temperature-controlled warehouse in the Boyle Heights neighborhood and smoldered for days.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
Prosecutors said the Lachman fire smoldered underground for a week before exploding into the deadly Palisades fire.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
As parts of the city smoldered, many turned to Didion’s aching, poetic rendering of a paradise lost.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2025
According to the ATF special agent, a firebrand became lodged within dense chaparral and then smoldered and burned within the roots of the vegetation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2025
Calypso’s eyes smoldered with anger, but for once Leo didn’t think the anger was aimed at him.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
“It is hot, smoldering at this particular point, but the incident is still within a scope that it could decrease or continue going.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
With every step farther into “the pile,” what rescue workers came to call the smoldering mass of debris, a coating of white powder got thicker and deeper—like snow that wasn’t snow, my father recalls.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
Drought changes that dramatically, allowing flames to enter the peat itself and continue smoldering below the surface.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 6, 2026
Firefighters and police were working at the scene amid the twisted, smoldering wreckage of the aircraft, images posted on Facebook by local news outlets revealed.
From Barron's ● Aug. 1, 2026
After a moment Zau rose from his knees and carried the gold collar to a fire smoldering in a small hooded furnace.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
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.
