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Speakers of the English language, mindful of the lightness and unsubstantiality of floating air and gas, have put several airy words to good use over the years to describe the act of talking idly or boastfully. The earliest such word is blow (as in "he kept blowing about his new job"), which drifted into English sometime about 1400. Vapor wafted into the language in the 1620s, and a little over 200 years later windbags, later also known as gasbags, not only blew and vapored but also gassed about anything they could.
Synonyms
Examples of vapor in a Sentence
William Gavin, Quartz, 12 Apr. 2024
The unusual rings are made of gas and vapor, experts said.
—Anna Lazarus Caplan, Peoplemag, 9 Apr. 2024
The vapors might contain hydrogen sulfide, which can be lethal if inhaled in a concentrated amount.
—Jeanne Huber, Washington Post, 5 Apr. 2024
In less than a millisecond the vapor recondenses and the chamber cools and refills with ink, returning the nozzle to the resting state.
—Phillip W. Barth, IEEE Spectrum, 25 Mar. 2024
The vapor jets were about 6,000 miles long, roughly the distance between Boston, Massachusetts, and Santa Monica, California, and back.
—Discover Magazine, 25 Mar. 2024
The exposure to the wasabi vapors even increased the sample’s tensile strength by 26 percent.
—Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Mar. 2024
GaN has been used for making LEDs, usually by a process known as metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) where a thin film of GaN is deposited on some substrate like sapphire.
—Willy Shih, Forbes, 19 Feb. 2024
All four wore long coats and breathed ghosts of visible vapor into the cold February morning.
—CBS News, 17 Mar. 2024
The Arizona Republic, 10 Feb. 2024
The other challenge was the presence of both liquid and vapor the refrigeration cycle.
—IEEE Spectrum, 10 June 2021
This gradually increases the amount of vapor produced as the system absorbs heat and converts liquid to vapor.
—Issam Mudawar, The Conversation, 14 Sep. 2023
At the surface, standard geothermal technology would be implemented for electricity generation (an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) plant, using a secondary organic working fluid that is flashed to vapor to drive a turbine/generator; or, direct flashing to steam).
—Ian Palmer, Forbes, 19 May 2022
Large windows angle open, and massive glass doors turn indoors into outdoors with a smooth slide as state-of-the-art ventilation systems silently spirit smoke and vapor away.
—Los Angeles Times, 7 Dec. 2022
Despite what ads tell you, no waterproof shell is completely breathable—blocking water requires some impediments to vapor transfer.
—Outside Online, 27 May 2022
The work had to be done quickly as water vanished to vapor in the early summer heat.
—Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 19 June 2021
Meanwhile, in a natural process called wicking, that moisture turns to vapor as it is continuously pulled outward from minuscule air spaces between the fibers of the felt, eventually evaporating entirely.
—Emma Wartzman, Bon Appétit, 5 Nov. 2020
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vapor.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near vapor
Cite this Entry
“Vapor.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vapor. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
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vapor
noun
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