smokelessness

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

smokeless +‎ -ness

Noun[edit]

smokelessness (uncountable)

  1. The state or condition of being smokeless.
    • 1891, Thomas Hardy, “11s”, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles[1]:
      By the engine stood a dark, motionless being, a sooty and grimy embodiment of tallness, in a sort of trance, with a heap of coals by his side: it was the engine-man. The isolation of his manner and colour lent him the appearance of a creature from Tophet, who had strayed into the pellucid smokelessness of this region of yellow grain and pale soil, with which he had nothing in common, to amaze and to discompose its aborigines.
    • 1915, Percy F. Westerman, chapter 11, in The Nameless Island[2], London: C. Arthur Pearson, published 1920:
      The sharp “crack” of the weapon, its smokelessness, and the peculiar screech of the nickel bullets filled them with awe []
    • 2007, Craig Sherborne, Muck: A Memoir[3], New York: Norton, published 2010, page 150:
      My beer glass is empty. My cigarette has burned down to near smokelessness, hardly any company to deflect being in this bar alone.

Translations[edit]