Fumes are smoke or gas with a strong smell, and usually an unpleasant one. Petrol, paint, exhaust, burning plastic.
The word is nearly always plural and it nearly always implies harm, which is why the standard advice is to work in a well-ventilated room. Exhaust fumes, petrol fumes and toxic fumes are all fixed phrases. There is a fine idiom about scraping by, since running on fumes means having almost nothing left in the tank, whether petrol or energy. The singular verb fume means to be silently furious.
1nounfumesStrong-smelling and often harmful gas or smoke.
“The fumes from the paint gave him a headache.”
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word