fume
part of speech
noun (fumes — usually plural); verb (fume, fumes, fumed, fuming)
meaning for a pupil
1) Fumes are smoke, gas or strong smells that are unpleasant or harmful to breathe, like car exhaust or paint fumes. tree →
2) To fume is to be very angry, often quietly or while waiting. tree →
3) To fume is to give off smoke or gas. tree →
4) (informal, UK) «I'm fuming» means I'm really angry. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science and safety lessons, harmful fumes from cars, fires and chemicals are a danger; open windows when painting. In stories, a character fumes with anger: «She fumed all the way home.» Phrases: «exhaust fumes», «paint fumes», «toxic fumes», «fuming with anger», «running on fumes» (almost out of fuel or energy).
examples
- The car's exhaust fumes made me cough. tree →
- Open the window; the paint fumes are strong. tree →
- The firefighters wore masks against the toxic fumes. tree →
- Dad fumed when the train was late again. tree →
- I was fuming when my brother broke my model! tree →
- The chemical began to fume when it touched the water. tree →
- I'm running on fumes after that long day. tree →
note
As a noun, usually plural: fumes. Verb is regular: fumed, fuming. «Fuming» is a strong but not rude word for angry. Safety: never breathe fumes from chemicals or burning plastic; tell an adult.
In the corpora
- Many plastics soften when heated, because heat lets the chains move; burning plastic gives off poisonous fumes.
- Fumes from overheated non-stick pans can kill birds quickly, so birds are kept out of the kitchen.
- Cerys is fuming at the bossing and glowing at the rescue.
- Platinum is rarer than gold and is used in car parts called catalytic converters that clean exhaust fumes.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «fume» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.