Library / English Dictionary

SMOULDER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A fire that burns with thick smoke but no flame

Example:

the smoulder suddenly became a blaze

Synonyms:

smolder; smoulder

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("smoulder" is a kind of...):

fire (the event of something burning (often destructive))

Derivation:

smoulder (burn slowly and without a flame)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Burn slowly and without a flame

Example:

a smoldering fire

Synonyms:

smolder; smoulder

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "smoulder" is one way to...):

burn; combust (undergo combustion)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

smoulder (a fire that burns with thick smoke but no flame)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Have strong suppressed feelings

Synonyms:

smolder; smoulder

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "smoulder" is one way to...):

experience; feel (undergo an emotional sensation or be in a particular state of mind)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Credits

 Context examples: 

The damp straw of the mattress, fired from beneath and denied air, had been smouldering all the while.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

What smouldering fire of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in this passionate Celtic woman’s soul when she saw the man who had wronged her—wronged her, perhaps, far more than we suspected—in her power?

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The eternal cigarette smouldered in his mouth.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Near the horizon the sun was smouldering dimly, almost obscured by formless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass and density without outline or tangibility.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

They were neither large nor small, while their color was a nondescript brown; but in them smouldered a fire, or, rather, lurked an expression dual and strangely contradictory.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Our effects were scattered in wild confusion over the ground; my comrades had disappeared, and close to the smouldering ashes of our fire the grass was stained crimson with a hideous pool of blood.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She said it with a taunting pride in the midst of her frenzy—for it was little less—yet with an eager remembrance of it, in which the smouldering embers of a gentler feeling kindled for the moment.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But it took a subtler insight to read the grim smile which flickered over the smith’s mouth, or the smouldering fire which shone in his grey eyes, and it was only the old-timers who knew that, with his mighty heart and his iron frame, he was a perilous man to lay odds against.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then the "$8.00" began to smoulder under his lids again, and he returned himself to servitude.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He could suit himself to his company, too, for on the one hand he could take his wine with the vicar, or with Sir James Ovington, the squire of the parish; while on the other he would sit by the hour amongst my humble friends down in the smithy, with Champion Harrison, Boy Jim, and the rest of them, telling them such stories of Nelson and his men that I have seen the Champion knot his great hands together, while Jim’s eyes have smouldered like the forge embers as he listened.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)