Dictionary

vapory en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈveɪpəɹi/ (UK)

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin vapor Old French vapeurder. Old French vaporbor. Middle English vapour English vapor English -y English vapory From vapor + -y.

Meanings

1. Resembling vapor; vaporous.
   • See also quotations under vapoury.
   • Long at the window he stood, and wistfully gazed on the landscape, / Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapory breath of the east-wind, 1858, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish, I, 54-55:
   • The greatest damps however, that may ever roll upon your spirits, will arise from the stupidity of sinners, and the vapory dullness of declining Christians. 1800, Rosewell Messenger, A Sermon Preached at the Ordination of the Rev. James Boyd at Bangor on Penobscot River, September 10, 1800, pages 24–5:
   • At the same moment it chanced that the vapory fleece hanging low in the East, was shot thro' with a soft glory as of the fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision, […] 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 22, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.:
   • But here again, Christians consider the word literally, as though the Lord would appear upon the vapory clouds over our heads. 1792, William Pine, General Proofs that the Second Advent of the Lord hath Taken Place, and also, the Essential Doctrines of His New Kingdom Stated, Bristol: self-published, page 14:
2. Characterized by the presence of vapor; full of, or obscured by, vapor.
   • The most fetid and poisonous smells everywhere prevailed; and by the aid of that ghastly light which, even at midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapory and pestilential atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-paths and alleys, or rotting in the windowless habitations, the carcass of many a nocturnal plunderer arrested by the hand of the plague in the very perpetration of his robbery. 1835, Edgar Allan Poe, King Pest:

Forms