smolder
UK/ˈsməʊldə(ɹ)//ˈsmoʊldɚ/
smolder verb: to burn slowly, giving off smoke but with little to no flame.
Verb
smolder (third-person singular simple present smolders, present participle smoldering, simple past and past participle smoldered)
- To burn slowly, giving off smoke but with little to no flame.
- The remains of the bonfire were left to smolder for hours.
- Our quiuering Lances ſhaking in the aire,
And bullets like Ioues dreadfull Thunderbolts,
Enrolde in flames and fiery ſmoldering miſtes,
Shall threat the Gods more than Cyclopian warres, […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
- To show signs of repressed anger or suppressed mental turmoil or other strong emotion, such as passion.
- To exist in a suppressed or hidden state.
Noun
smolder (plural smolders)
- The act of smoldering or something that smolders.
- And she’s got a great scene partner in Stevens, refining his star power into a just slightly, almost imperceptibly mechanical approximation of Don Juan smolder. He lets us admire the interface and still see the code ticking away underneath it.2021 September 16, A. A. Dowd, “Dan Stevens as a dashing robot lover? That computes”, in AV Club
smolder meaning in Urdu and Bengali
smolder in Urdu
- سلگنا
smolder in Bengali
- ধিকিধিকি জ্বলা, ধোঁয়া ওঠা
More languagesFewer languages
- Kashmiri
- وُہُن vuhun
Examples of smolder in a sentence
- The wintering grasses smoldered with a reddish-browh hue, similar to the patches on the bird's coverlet feathers.
- Hanging on the center smoke pole high above the small smoldering fire hung two beadeye dolls.
- He made him a little smoldering pocket of punk to light the fuses and waited.
Forms of smolder
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | smolders |
| present participle | smoldering |
| past participle | smoldered |
| past | smoldered |
| alternative British | smoulder |
| Noun | |
| plural | smolders |
Origin of smolder
From Middle English smolderen (“to suffocate, stifle”), from Middle English smolder (“smoke, smoky vapour”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *smolōn (“to burn, glow, fume, smoulder”). Related to Proto-West Germanic *smallijan (> English smell).
Words formed from smolder
Words that rhyme with smolder
Questions about smolder
- What does smolder mean?
- Smolder means to burn slowly, giving off smoke but with little to no flame.
- What is smolder in Urdu?
- Smolder in Urdu is سلگنا. See Smolder meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is smolder?
- Smolder can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce smolder?
- Smolder is pronounced /ˈsməʊldə(ɹ)/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of smolder?
- The past tense of smolder is smoldered.
Words near smolder in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: smolder (page history and authors); smolder (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); smolder (Bengali Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-smolder.ogg.
Cite this entry: “smolder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/smolder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.