- a visible exhalation, such as fog, mist, steam, smoke, or noxious gas, diffused through or suspended in the air: The vapors rising from the bogs smelled muddy.
- a gas at a temperature below its critical temperature.
- a substance converted into a gaseous state for technical or medicinal uses.
- a combination of gaseous particles of a substance and air.
- vapors, Archaic.
- harmful exhalations formerly supposed to be produced within the body, especially in the stomach.
- mental or physical illness, such as depression or hypochondria, formerly supposed to result from such exhalations, especially in women.
- a feeling of being overwhelmed with strong emotion: That guy gives the press the vapors every time he announces a new project.
- Archaic.
- a strange, senseless, or fantastic notion.
- something insubstantial or transitory.
- to cause to rise or pass off in, or as if in, vapor; vaporize.
- to affect with the vapors; depress.
- to rise or pass off in the form of vapor.
- to emit vapor or exhalations.
- to talk or act grandiloquently, pompously, or boastfully; bluster.
- the US spelling of vapour
