smoulder
/ˈsməʊldə
/(US also smolder)
verb [no object]
1Burn slowly with smoke but no flame: the bonfire still smouldered, the smoke drifting over the paddock...
- So far she could only see fire and the ruins of houses that had already burned down or were smoldering in the flames.
- Cigarettes are designed to smoulder, to burn slowly.
- Even when the water cannon finally beat back the flames, timbers smoked and embers smouldered until rain finally fell.
Synonyms
burn slowly, smoke, glow
archaic reek
1.1Show or feel barely suppressed anger, hatred, or another powerful emotion: Anna smouldered with indignation (as adjective smouldering) he met her smouldering eyes...
- Asgard had seen the accusing look in Terian's face and could not meet the familiar sapphire blue eyes that suddenly smoldered with hatred.
- His dark eyes smoldered with indescribable emotion.
- His eyes smoldered with hatred and he growled, but finally his eyes dropped respectfully.
Synonyms
seethe, boil, fume, burn, simmer, be boiling over, be beside oneself
informal be livid, be wild, jump up and down, froth/foam at the mouth
1.2Exist in a suppressed or concealed state: the controversy smouldered on for several years (as adjective smouldering) smouldering rage...
- But that doesn't quite happen, either, if one is to believe the still smoldering conflicts over birth control that turn up in this study.
- This book is fascinating not because of exploding bombs and smouldering passions, but because of the perplexing subtleties it offers about a life often judged uninteresting.
- After the conflict had been smouldering for many years, it flared up again in August this year in a border dispute between Abkhazia and Georgia over the Kodori Gorge.
Synonyms
exist unseen, burn, seethe, simmer, fester, lie dormant
noun [mass noun]
Smoke coming from a smouldering fire: the last acrid smoulder of his cigarette...
- Alexander watched the twin red-hot points of fire smoulder in the figure's flesh, but to his amazement, the wound healed before his eyes.
- The smokestacks from the factories of Tokyo were belching black smolder into already fetid air.
- But it's cozier in there; the smolder of tobacco fumes collects on the structural beams that maintain the shelter and mixes with raw breath to mildew man and trench shoring.
Derivatives
smoulderingly
- Richard, the novel's true hero, is tall, dark and smoulderingly handsome - but also cripplingly shy and reserved in that Mr Darcy sort of way that makes him seem insufferably arrogant.
- Superstar Michael Douglas and his smoulderingly beautiful wife Catherine Zeta Jones really know all about the lifestyle of the very rich and famous, writes Ken Bennett.
- Scorpio is reputedly the most sexually magnetic, smoulderingly charismatic and psychologically penetrating sign of the zodiac.
Origin
Late Middle English: related to Dutch smeulen.