vaporous

adj

Etymology: From Middle English vaporous, from Late Latin vapōrōsus (“full of steam”), from Latin vapor (“exhalation; smoke; steam, vapour”) (possibly related to Proto-Indo-European *kwep- (“to boil; to smoke, steam; aroma; strong odour”)) + -ōsus (suffix meaning ‘full of, overly, prone to’ forming adjectives from nouns). The English word is analysable as vapour + -ous. Possibly a doublet of hope. Cognates * French vaporeux (“misty, vaporous; filmy, transparent”) * Italian vaporoso (“flimsy, gauzy; fluffy; vaporous”) * Portuguese vaporoso * Spanish vaporoso (“airy; vaporous”)

1. Of or relating to vapour; also, having the characteristics or consistency of vapour.

   “Hovv can darkneſſe be called a Maſſe? &c. No it cannot. Nor a thin vaporous matter neither.”

   “For the great rock has screened the westering sun / That still on plains beyond streams vaporous gold / Among the branches; […]”

2. Breathing out or giving off vapour.
3. Of a place: filled with vapour; foggy, misty.

   “O hatefull, vaporous, and foggy night, / Since thou art guilty of my cureleſſe crime: / Muſter thy miſts to meete the Eaſterne light, / Make vvar againſt proportion'd courſe of time.”

   “[W]e ſee that the very aire it ſelfe is never conglaciate nor frozen, nor hardened, conſidering that miſts, fogs and clouds are no congealations, but onely gatherings and thickenings of a moiſt and vapourous aire: for the true aire indeed vvhich hath no vapour at all and is altogether drie, admitteth no ſuch refrigeration as may alter it to that degree and heigth ^([sic]).”

4. Of a thing: covered or hidden by vapour, fog, or mist.

   “Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds / Along the pebbled shore of memory! / Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be / Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified / To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride, / And golden keel'd, is left unlaunch'd and dry.”

5. Lacking depth or substance; insubstantial, thoughtless, vague.

   “So vvhoſoeuer ſhall entertaine high and vapourous imaginations, in ſteede of a laborious and ſober inquiry of truth ſhall beget hopes and Beliefes of ſtrange and impoſſible ſhapes.”

   “Now I recenter my immortal mind / In the deep sabbath of meek self-content; / Cleans'd from the vaporous passions that bedim / God's Image, sister of the Seraphim.”

6. Of clothes or fabric: thin and translucent; filmy, gauzy.

   “[A]irily-attired ladies were lounging upon the chairs in the gardens of the Tuileries; only the most fragile and vaporous bonnets were to be seen in the Bois de Boulogne; […]”

   “She carried herself no less attentively than usual, and kept no less anxious an eye upon her vaporous skirts; she held her bouquet very tight, and counted over the flowers for the twentieth time.”

7. Feeling melancholy; experiencing the vapors.

   “The task at first daunted him, and he wailed to Mary that he could not write about the Florentines because he no longer enjoyed them as a school. Again Mary rescued him from his vaporous mood, and the two of them vigorously plunged into the new work.”