vapour

[ vey-per ]

noun, verb (used with or without object)Chiefly British.

usage note For vapour

See -or1.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use vapour in a sentence

  • When I told you that I would fling myself into the lake if you betrayed me, it was not the mere idle vapouring of a foolish girl.

  • In comes Will Joyce to us drunk, and in a talking vapouring humour of his state, and I know not what, which did vex me cruelly.

  • The British officers and men fumed and growled at the insult, longing for an opportunity of paying off the vapouring Frenchmen.

    True Blue | W.H.G. Kingston
  • Women without children are always vapouring about their husbands, as if married life ought to be a garden of Eden.

  • So that this strange word of George Hamon's was to me but empty vapouring brought on by that blow on the head.

    Carette of Sark | John Oxenham

British Dictionary definitions for vapour

vapour

US vapor

/ (ˈveɪpə) /


noun
  1. particles of moisture or other substance suspended in air and visible as clouds, smoke, etc

  2. a gaseous substance at a temperature below its critical temperature: Compare gas (def. 3)

  1. a substance that is in a gaseous state at a temperature below its boiling point

  2. rare something fanciful that lacks substance or permanence

  3. the vapours archaic a depressed mental condition believed originally to be the result of vaporous exhalations from the stomach

verb
  1. to evaporate or cause to evaporate; vaporize

  2. (intr) to make vain empty boasts; brag

Origin of vapour

1
C14: from Latin vapor

Derived forms of vapour

  • vapourable or US vaporable, adjective
  • vapourability or US vaporability, noun
  • vapourer or US vaporer, noun
  • vapourish or US vaporish, adjective
  • vapourless or US vaporless, adjective
  • vapour-like or US vapor-like, adjective
  • vapoury or US vapory, adjective

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012