Other forms: fumes, fuming, fumed
To fume is to give off smoke — or to seethe with anger. The same word for both, and the connection is obvious.
The noun is nearly always plural, since fumes means the unpleasant gases from petrol, paint or a fire, and they are what you are told not to breathe. The verb has drifted almost entirely to temper, and somebody fuming is furious but not saying anything, which is the important part. That silent, contained quality is what makes the word so useful. The adjective fuming is stronger than annoyed and just short of exploding.
1noununpleasantUnpleasant gas or smoke given off by something.
“The garage was thick with exhaust fumes.”
2verbfumeTo be silently and visibly furious.
“She sat fuming in the car park.”
Fume is smoke, and the temper is a metaphor. Latin fūmus meant vapour or smoke, so a person fuming is being described as smouldering.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰewh₂-
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰuh₂mós — smoke
Latin
fūmus — vapour, smoke
Old French
fum — smoke, steam, vapour
Middle English
fume
English, today
fume
Built from
From Middle English fume, from Old French fum (“smoke, steam, vapour”), from Latin fūmus (“vapour, smoke”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰuh₂mós (“smoke”), from dʰewh₂- (“to smoke, raise dust”). a doublet of thymus and thymos. More at dun, dusk, dust.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA