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PUFFING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An act of forcible exhalation
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("puffing" is a kind of...):
breathing out; exhalation; expiration (the act of expelling air from the lungs)
Derivation:
puff (breathe noisily, as when one is exhausted)
puff (blow hard and loudly)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Blowing tobacco smoke out into the air
Example:
they smoked up the room with their ceaseless puffing
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("puffing" is a kind of...):
smoke; smoking (the act of smoking tobacco or other substances)
Derivation:
puff (smoke and exhale strongly)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb puff
Context examples:
"We shall have a coalition presently," he boomed, looking from his wife to me and puffing out his enormous chest.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
At the same time, he remarked after a pause, during which he had sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I lay back against the cushions, puffing at my cigar, while Holmes, leaning forward, with his long, thin forefinger checking off the points upon the palm of his left hand, gave me a sketch of the events which had led to our journey.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I looked out for Mr. Barkis, but he was not there; and instead of him a fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach window, and said: Master Copperfield?
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
There was Challenger, with his smile of condescension, his drooping eyelids, his intolerant eyes, his aggressive beard, his huge chest, swelling and puffing as he laid down the law to Summerlee.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still gesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in his eyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and pity.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
