smoldering

smoldering is the present participle and gerund of smolder.

smoldering is the US standard spelling of smouldering.

Meaning of smolder

smolder (third-person singular simple present smolders, present participle smoldering, simple past and past participle smoldered)

(US, intransitive) To burn slowly, giving off smoke but with little to no flame.
- The remains of the bonfire were left to smolder for hours.
(figuratively, intransitive) To show signs of repressed anger or suppressed mental turmoil or other strong emotion, such as passion.
(figuratively, intransitive) To exist in a suppressed or hidden state.

smouldering (plural smoulderings)

(figuratively, sometimes) The act by which something smoulders; residual heat.
- the smoulderings of the Thirty Years War

What is smoldering the present participle and gerund of?: Smoldering is the present participle and gerund of smolder.

Adapted from Wiktionary: smoldering (page history and authors); smolder (page history and authors); smouldering (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “smoldering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/smoldering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.