SMOTHER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Smother

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/smˈəðər/ Listen

verb

Smother v. t. (past & past part. smothered; pres. part. smothering)

1.

To destroy the life of by suffocation; to deprive of the air necessary for life; to cover up closely so as to prevent breathing; to suffocate; as, to smother a child.

2.

To affect as by suffocation; to stife; to deprive of air by a thick covering, as of ashes, of smoke, or the like; as, to smother a fire.

3.

Hence, to repress the action of; to cover from public view; to suppress; to conceal; as, to smother one's displeasure.

Smother v. i.

1.

To be suffocated or stifled.

2.

To burn slowly, without sufficient air; to smolder.

noun

Smother n.

1.

Stifling smoke; thick dust.

2.

A state of suppression. (Obs.) "Not to keep their suspicions in smother."

3.

That which smothers or causes a sensation of smothering, as smoke, fog, the foam of the sea, a confused multitude of things. "Then they vanished, swallowed up in the grayness of the evening and the smoke and smother of the storm."

Smother fly (Zool.), an aphid.

See images of 'Smother'

Etymology of 'Smother'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Smother" Quotes from Famous Books

... we're roaming, Mid flow'rets may lie, But soon will life's gloaming, Come dark'ning our sky. Then seek not to smother Kind feelings in thee, And scorn not thy brother, Though poor he ...

— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... it is the fool alone who remains stationary. Wise and observing friends will probably tell you—or at least relate anecdotes to you, from which you may gather the conclusion—that when the clothes of a child have caught fire, you may often smother the flame by wrapping him instantly in a thick woollen blanket:—that it is seldom entirely safe to open the doors into an adjoining room—at least without great caution—when the house which we are in is discovered ...

— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... than one half of the better sort of the inhabitants have enter'd into a resolution of injoying free liberty in Love, without being Troubled or disturbed by its consequences. These mix and Cohabit together with the utmost freedom, and the Chilldren who are so unfortunate as to be thus begot are smother'd at the Moment of their Birth; many of these People contract intimacies and live together as man and wife for years, in the course of which the Children that are born are destroy'd. They are so far from concealing it that they ...

— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... the question—Would she hold her way long enough to cant in the proper direction? And, as luck would have it, just then there came hissing and foaming down upon us a particularly heavy sea, into which the frigate dived until she was all a-smother for'ard. Yet, notwithstanding this, her head continued to sweep round—slowly, it is true; still—"Mainsail haul!" bellowed the first luff through his trumpet, and round swung the after yards, the men bracing them well up and rounding in on the main-sheet. ...

— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... the great dining-room he saw once more his coveted picture, the image of the morning, the tall young girl with the brown ruff of hair rolling back from the smooth brow, above the clear-seeing dark eyes. Here again, by miracle, had come his friend, to meet him in the smother of the grimy way of life! Yet he thought the girl looked at him but coldly as he stood wearily apart. He felt himself unaccredited, a man of no station. Again there swept over him the feeling of his own insufficiency, his own failure of all life's things worth having. It seemed to him ...

— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

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