hot air
1. attrib. or as adj. Of hot air, or in which hot air is used.
| 1813 M. Edgeworth Let. 26 Apr. (1971) 27 When first the hot air flues were opened..the hot air all escaped. 1841 C. Cist Cincinnati (Advt.), Manufacturers of Hot Air Furnaces, Stoves, &c. 1853 Hunt's Merchant's Mag. XXVIII. 282 Hot-air vessels are to take the place of steamships. 1854 Ronalds & Richardson Chem. Technol. (ed. 2) I. 233 No fear of smoke being mingled with the hot-air current... A hot-air stove. 1861 Mrs. Beeton Bk. Housek. Managem. 1009 A better arrangement is to have a hot-air closet,..heated by hot-air pipes,..and clothes-horses on castors..for drying purposes. 1892 Stevenson & Osbourne Wrecker i. 24, I designed.. a hot-air grating for the offices. 1905 G. Bacon Balloons i. 23 To this day large hot-air balloons inflated by the same methods employed a hundred years ago occasionally take passengers aloft. 1908 Sears, Roebuck Catal. 606/3 Standard American Plumbing. Hot Air and Hot Water Heating. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 424/1 Hot-air heater, one which supplies warm air through gratings in the floor or openings in the walls. Ibid., Hot-air turbine. 1964 M. Hynes Med. Bacteriol. (ed. 8) iii. 27 The syringe, clean, assembled and lubricated, is packed in a glass or metal tube and subjected to a temperature of 160° C for 1 hour in the hot-air oven. 1970 New Yorker 3 Oct. 28/2 We can..move hot-air registers around simply by making holes in the floor. 1973 Times 8 Jan. 2/5 (caption) A hot-air airship, claimed to be the world's first, making its maiden flight yesterday from Newbury, Berkshire. |
2. colloq. (orig. U.S.). Vaporous or boastful talk, pretentious or unsubstantial statements or claims; also attrib., as in hot-air artist or hot air merchant, one who indulges in talk of this kind.
| 1873 ‘Mark Twain’ & Warner Gilded Age xliv. 399 The most airy scheme inflated in the hot air of the Capital only reached in magnitude some of his lesser fancies, the by-play of his constructive imagination. 1900 Ade Fables in Slang 126 They strolled under the Maples, and he talked what is technically known as Hot Air. 1906 [see blue sky 2]. 1910 Sat. Even. Post 2 July 13/3 ‘Hot-air artists’ was a phrase uncoined; the farmer called them ‘jawsmiths’. 1911 H. B. Wright Winning of Barbara Worth 327 The presence av sich..a hot air merchant..is a disgrace to any..company. 1914 [see bull n.4 3]. 1920 ‘Sapper’ Bull-Dog Drummond xii. 308 Author—so-called. Hot-air factory, but useful up to a point. 1922 Daily Mail 20 Nov. 8 Much ‘hot air’ from the politicians. 1932 [see bull n.4 3]. 1956 A. Wilson Anglo-Saxon Att. ii. iii. 365 Gerald in his new mood thought only he shouldn't have poll-parroted his life away in humbug and hot air. 1963 Times 17 May 13/7 Anti-European slogans shouted by politicians were mere hot air. 1970 T. Coe Wax Apple (1973) xxiv. 170, I think you're just full of hot air... I don't believe you know anything. |