Word.ws English Dictionary

steam devil

steam devil noun: a spiraling wind caused by rising thermals off a warm body of water's surface that has been enveloped by a layer of very cold air, which also causes the humidity in the thermal to turn to mist, highlighting the whirl of the column. The equivalent of a dustdevil over water.

Noun

steam devil (plural steam devils)

  1. A spiraling wind caused by rising thermals off a warm body of water's surface that has been enveloped by a layer of very cold air, which also causes the humidity in the thermal to turn to mist, highlighting the whirl of the column. The equivalent of a dustdevil over water.

Forms of steam devil

pluralsteam devils
alternative formsteamdevil
alternative formsteam-devil

Origin of steam devil

From steam + devil. From being a whirlwind (“devil”) formed from mist (“steam”). Patterned after dust devil.

Questions about steam devil

What does steam devil mean?
Steam devil means a spiraling wind caused by rising thermals off a warm body of water's surface that has been enveloped by a layer of very cold air, which also causes the humidity in the thermal to turn to mist, highlighting the whirl of the column. The equivalent of a dustdevil over water.
What part of speech is steam devil?
Steam devil is a noun.
What is the plural of steam devil?
The plural of steam devil is steam devils.

Words near steam devil in the dictionary

  1. steam cracker
  2. steam crackers
  3. steam cracking
  4. steam crane
  5. steam cranes
  6. steam devil
  7. steam digester
  8. steam digesters
  9. steam distillation
  10. steam distillations
  11. steam dome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: steam devil (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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Cite this entry: “steam devil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/steam_devil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.