Library / English Dictionary

SOOT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink

Synonyms:

carbon black; crock; lampblack; smut; soot

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

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

atomic number 6; C; carbon (an abundant nonmetallic tetravalent element occurring in three allotropic forms: amorphous carbon and graphite and diamond; occurs in all organic compounds)

Derivation:

soot (coat with soot)

sooty (of the blackest black; similar to the color of jet or coal)

sooty (covered with or as if with soot)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Coat with soot

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

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

coat; surface (put a coat on; cover the surface of; furnish with a surface)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Derivation:

soot (a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Black carbon from those fires — more commonly known as soot — would have been transported by atmospheric winds and deposited in Antarctic glaciers and later entered in lakes through freshwater run-off from nearby glaciers.

(Antarctic lakes are a repository for ancient soot, NSF)

Airborne soot produced by wildfires and fossil-fuel combustion and transported to the remote McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica contains levels of black carbon too low to contribute significantly to the melting of local glaciers.

(Soot transported from elsewhere in world contributes little to melting of some Antarctic glaciers, National Science Foundation)

Then she took her little lamp, and went into her cabin, and took off the fur skin, and washed the soot from off her face and hands, so that her beauty shone forth like the sun from behind the clouds.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

From babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life before them; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of England on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins; every age and occupation appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the “tween decks.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Ikeega tore her hair and put soot of the seal-oil on her face in token of her grief; and the women assailed the men with bitter words in that they had mistreated the boy and sent him to his death; and the men made no answer, preparing to go in search of the body when the storm abated.

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

Until now, a key question was whether the new soot- and sand-like dust particles would survive the subsequent inward rebound shock wave generated when the first, outward-moving shock wave collides with surrounding interstellar gas and dust.

(Missing Link Between Supernovae and Planet Formation, NASA)

Benz(a)anthracene is primarily found in gasoline and diesel exhaust, tobacco and cigarette smoke, coal tar and coal tar pitch, coal combustion emissions, charcoal-broiled foods, amino acids, fatty acids and carbohydrate pyrolysis products, wood and soot smoke, and creosote, asphalt and mineral oils.

(Benz[a]anthracene, NCI Thesaurus)

But this time she kept away too long, and stayed beyond the half-hour; so she had not time to take off her fine dress, and threw her fur mantle over it, and in her haste did not blacken herself all over with soot, but left one of her fingers white.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Then he got hold of the fur and tore it off, and her golden hair and beautiful form were seen, and she could no longer hide herself: so she washed the soot and ashes from her face, and showed herself to be the most beautiful princess upon the face of the earth.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

When all were ready, the king sent them to her; but she got up in the night when all were asleep, and took three of her trinkets, a golden ring, a golden necklace, and a golden brooch, and packed the three dresses—of the sun, the moon, and the stars—up in a nutshell, and wrapped herself up in the mantle made of all sorts of fur, and besmeared her face and hands with soot.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)