smoulder

Verb

smoulder (third-person singular simple present smoulders, present participle smouldering, simple past and past participle smouldered)

1. (intransitive, chiefly Britain) Alternative form of smolder
   • 1895, H. G. Wells, The Time Machine Chapter XI

     I don't know if you have ever thought what a rare thing in the absence of man and in a temperate climate, flames must be. The sun's heat is rarely strong enough to burn even when focussed by dewdrops, as is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning may blast and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. Decaying vegetation may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation, but this again rarely results in flames. Now, in this decadent age the art of fire-making had been altogether forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.

2. (obsolete) To smother; to suffocate; to choke.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Holinshed to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Palsgrave to this entry?)

Noun

smoulder

1. (obsolete) smoke; smother
   • Gascoigne

     The smoulder stops our nose with stench.

Anagrams

• R-modules, moulders, remoulds