Word.ws English Dictionary

raise steam

raise steam verb: to build up a useful head (pressure level) of steam in a steam-engined vehicle's boiler.

Verb

raise steam (third-person singular simple present raises steam, present participle raising steam, simple past and past participle raised steam)

  1. To build up a useful head (pressure level) of steam in a steam-engined vehicle's boiler.
    • […] the fireman has to divide his time between getting up into the bunker to throw more turfs into the cab, and getting down on his hands and knees to get it into the firebox, and even then a reserve supply of turf must be carried on a truck behind the engine, and stops must be made on each steep...1945 January and February, “Notes and News: Locomotive Firing with Turf”, in Railway Magazine, page 46
    • Engines with heavy snow ploughs are ordered to raise steam to a state of readiness, and freight trains may be cancelled or permissive loadings halved. This latter feature is of vital importance when it is borne in mind that trains are often snowed in through coming to rest between stations because...1960 January, M. Harbottle, “Maintaining Services after Heavy Snowfalls”, in Railway Magazine, page 10

Forms of raise steam

third-person singular presentraises steam
present participleraising steam
past participleraised steam
pastraised steam

Questions about raise steam

What does raise steam mean?
Raise steam means to build up a useful head (pressure level) of steam in a steam-engined vehicle's boiler.
What part of speech is raise steam?
Raise steam is a verb.
What is the past tense of raise steam?
The past tense of raise steam is raised steam.

Words near raise steam in the dictionary

  1. raise someone's consciousness
  2. raise someone's hackles
  3. raise someone's shackles
  4. raise someone's shag
  5. raise someone's spirits
  6. raise steam
  7. raise the alarm
  8. raise the ante
  9. raise the bar
  10. raise the dead
  11. raise the devil

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: raise steam (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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