smoker
(ˈsməʊkə(r))
[f. smoke v. + -er1. Cf. Du., Fris., MLG. smoker, LG. smöker (Da. sm{obar}ger), G. dial. schmaucher, schmöcher, schmeucher.]
1. a. One who cures fish, bacon, etc., by means of smoke.
| 1599 Nashe Lenten Stuff Wks. (Grosart) V. 278 Our Herring smoker hauing worn his monsters stale throughout England. 1688 Lond. Gaz. No. 2331/4 A Smoaker in Philpot-lane, London. 1699 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) IV. 530 Jeffery Jefferyes, esq. the smoaker. 1831 J. Porter Sir E. Seaward's Narr. III. 29 Another had been a sausage-maker, or a beef and ham smoker. 1883 F. A. Smith Swedish Fisheries 6 Scotch curers and smokers have, by private enterprise, been sent to Bohuslän. |
b. One who jests at, or ridicules, others.
| 1812 Colman Broad Grins, Two Parsons lxxxv, These wooden wits, these quizzers, queerers, Smokers. |
2. Something which emits smoke: † a. A war-vessel employed to conceal or assist hostile operations by discharging volumes of smoke. Obs.
| a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Smoker, a Vessel to Blind the Enemies, to make way for the Machine to Play. 1726 G. Shelvocke Voy. r. World 321 To bring me away in case I should have occasion to make use of mine as a Fire-ship, or a Smoaker. 1811 Self Instructor 587 Vessels of war are..a machine-vessel, a smoaker. |
† b. colloq. A steamer. Obs. rare.
| 1825 Sporting Mag. XVI. 211 We walked four miles early in the morning to the smoker. 1849 H. A. Wise Los Gringos xlv. 340, I..took passage in one of them smokers, bigger than a three-decker. |
c. A smoky chimney, locomotive, etc.
| 1883 J. Martin Reminisc. Old Haddington 29 Dr. Welsh's kitchen chimney was an inveterate smoker. 1897 Pall Mall Mag. Sept. 77 Strangers might suppose that American locomotives are inveterate smokers. |
d. A contrivance for smoking bees.
| 1875 J. Hunter Man. Bee-keeping (1884) 150 The simplest smoker of all is a roll of cotton rags. |
e. A motor vehicle or engine that emits excessive exhaust fumes (see also quot. 1951). colloq.
| 1951 Amer. Speech XXVI. 309/1 Smoker, n., a Diesel⁓motored truck. 1962 Daily Tel. 18 Aug. 13/4 Roadside checks..have resulted in about one diesel lorry in eight being termed a ‘smoker’ because it is making too much exhaust. 1976 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 30 Jan. 1/6 The Ontario Environment Ministry has laid its first pollution charge against the driver of a ‘smoker’—a car emitting dense smoke. |
3. a. One who smokes tobacco, opium, or the like.
| 1617 R. Brathwait Smoaking Age 171 Yet of all these, none to me so profest enemies as these smokers of our Age. 1686 Plot Staffordsh. 302 A great smoker, &c., that never spit in his life. 1727 De Foe Protestant Monast. 10 He had been from his Youth a great Smoaker. 1796 Morse Amer. Geogr. II. 86 Both sexes are great smoakers. 1820 Byron Juan iii. xxxiv, Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling tales To a sedate grey circle of old smokers. 1882 Sala Amer. Revis. (1885) 389 The deficient accommodation provided for smokers. |
b. smoker's cough, a cough caused by excessive smoking. smoker's heart, smoker's throat, a diseased condition of the heart or throat caused by excessive smoking. smoker's patch, a smooth, bare white patch on the tongue due to excess in smoking.
| 1889 Buck's Handbk. Med. Sci. VII. 110 Smoker's Patch. Ibid. VIII. 553 Catarrh and hoarseness are so frequent as to give rise to the name ‘smoker's throat’. 1906 Daily Chron. 16 June 4/4 Nicotine..causing irregular action, and producing the condition known as smoker's heart. [1907 B. M. Croker Company's Servant i. 7 D'ye hear the cough of him? That's the real Ganja smoker's cough.] 1927 F. Harris My Life & Loves III. xii. 178 He smoked incessantly though the cigarettes plagued him with smoker's cough. 1942 R.A.F. Jrnl. 13 June 17 There was one case of a heavy smoker being sent back to his unit... He had a smoker's cough which betrayed him on night exercises. 1962 Guardian 14 Apr. 5/1 His smoker's cough, his overdraft anxiety, his impending divorce. 1967 E. Taylor Second Thursday i. 9 The old truck burst into life drowning out..the hacking smoker's cough of its owner. |
c. U.S. A grade of tobacco for smoking.
| 1880 U.S. Census, Rep. Culture Tobacco 15 Class 1. Domestic Cigar Tobacco and Smokers. |
4. a. A railway carriage or compartment assigned for the use of those travellers who wish to smoke.
| 1882 Sala Amer. Revis. II. 140 The car known as the ‘smoker’ is usually relegated to the least eligible part of the train. 1894 Outing XXIV. 116/1 We threw our bundles upon the platform of the smoker and climbed up after them. |
b. A concert at which smoking is permitted.
| 1887 Referee 9 Jan. 6/3 (Advt.), East Hill Smoking Concert Club.—The first ‘smoker’ of the above club will be given at the East Hill Hotel, Wandsworth, on Thursday, at 8 o'clock. 1891 Wheeling 25 Feb. 401 The Upperthorpe C.C. held a very enjoyable smoker on Thursday evening last. 1894 W. T. Vincent Recoll. Fred Leslie I. xviii. 25 Come down to our concert, A Smoker 'tis called. 1939 Joyce Finnegans Wake 433 Tootling risky apropos songs at commercial travellers' smokers. 1961 E. Williams George xx. 319 He was..in the Ouds and last term leading lady in the ‘smoker’, Oxford for smoking-concert. 1976 W. Goldman Magic ii. 79 Merlin..brought him along to an Elks' smoker. |
c. U.S. A social gathering of men, sometimes with organized entertainment.
| 1899 N.Y. Jrnl. 7 Sept. 1/3 Smoker at the Waldorf-Astoria for the sailors of the Olympic. 1911 H. S. Harrison Queed 196 After the bouts or the ‘exhibition’ of a Saturday, there was always a smoker. 1956 E. N. Rogers Queenie's Brood 42 A smoker was scheduled frequently at which boxing bouts were featured, or a pie race, a wrestling match, [etc.]. 1969 A. R. Bosworth My Love Affair with Navy xii. 168 Both the tin cans and the subs have long been famed for the smokers they hold ashore. |
5. School slang. One who blushes.
| 1866 Routledge's Every Boy's Ann. 217 If you happen to blush, he whispers in your ear ‘smoker’. |
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Add: [2.] f. Oceanogr. A submarine hydrothermal vent from which water and mineral particles issue; spec. = black smoker s.v. *black a. 19 a. Also, a chimney or other structure created at such a vent by the deposition of minerals.
| 1980 Science 28 Mar. 1425/1 Edifices atop the mounds are classed as either black or white, and those venting particulates are dubbed smokers. 1981 Nature 22 Jan. 219/2 Another difficulty is that similarly dense populations of large animals have been found in the proximity of ‘smokers’—hot-water vents where the dominant, conspicuous flow emerges at temperatures up to 350°C. 1983 Sci. Amer. Apr. 83/1 The formation of a massive sulfide deposit such as the deposits in ophiolites, which contain millions of tons of ore, would seem to require a forest of smokers. 1984 Listener 12 Jan. 35/1 Volcanic ‘smokers’, nearly two miles deep on the floor of the Pacific, produce clouds of black sulphides. |