Dictionary

smoke-talk en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (Australia, obsolete) The traditional Aboriginal use of smoke to send messages; smoke-signalling.
   • Twenty years ago I was in the Jervois Range in the north. I had gleaned some of the smoke talk of the natives. So when I saw a smoke signal on a distant ridge two long puffs side by side I recognised it as the query signal, "Who are you?" 1944 November 18, The World's News, Sydney, page 19, column 3:
   • It found new things on which to pander, as the tribal drums thudded and the smoke-talk climbed the Australian sky. 1932 September 27, The Sun, Sydney, page 20, column 7:
2. (Australia, obsolete) A message so sent; a smoke-signal.
   • ‘From the smoke-talks I really thought you must have been bringing out the native Leprosy Commission that I’ve heard vague rumours of.’ 1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 205:
3. (obsolete) A conversation undertaken while smoking tobacco, or while making smoke with a fire.
   • The monstrous bad taste of a Premier decrying Parliamentary methods in favour of street corner Conventions is deplorable enough, but the logical conclusion to which it leads is a serious danger, inasmuch as the reasoning (if it can be so called) means a return to the old Anglo-Saxon open-air gatherings or the Maori "smoke-talks." 1895 February 2, The Bacchus Marsh Express, Victoria, page 2, column 6:

Forms