asteam en · ADJ
Etymology
From a- + steam.
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Giving off steam, water vapour or smoke.
In the parcels office there were small cooking stoves, asteam with the aroma of boiling rice, set on the desks among the glue pots and brown paper, cardboard boxes of opened parcels.
1988, Tristan Jones, Somewheres East of Suez, Dobbs Ferry, NY: Sheridan House, published 1999, Part 3, Chapter 17, p. 227:1906, Oliver Onions, “Back o’ the Moon” in Back o’ the Moon and Other Stories, London: Hurst and Blackett, Chapter 17, p. 238, The fire burned here and there for a fortnight, and then there came a light shower or two that set the hills a-steam with opaque white smoke.
1845, Hugh Miller, cited in Thomas Brown (ed.), Annals of the Disruption, Edinburgh: MacLaren & MacNiven, 1877, Part 2, p. 37, The rude turf building we found full from end to end, and all asteam with a particularly wet congregation, some of whom […] had travelled in the soaking drizzle from the further extremities of the island.
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(not-comparable) Covered with condensation.
Sara, her eyeglasses asteam, was stirring a big pot of quahog chowder.
1965, Stanton Forbes, chapter 2, in Relative to Death, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 27:“Go ahead!” he screamed, his glasses asteam and opaque. “We can’t read it anyway! Go ahead! Rain on it!”
1987, Mitch Berman, Time Capsule, New York: Putnam, Part 1, Chapter 12, p. 73: