The informal verb chainwatch has been formed by analogy with the word chainsmoke, which refers to the action of smoking cigarettes one after another. The noun form chainsmoker, first used in the late 1800s, actually predates the verb by about 40 years, and its original use is thought to relate to Otto von Bismarck, cigar smoker and then chancellor of the German Empire. Chainsmoker therefore came into English as a loan translation of the original German word Kettenraucher.