smokestack

[ smohk-stak ]

noun

1. Also called stack. a pipe for the escape of the smoke or gases of combustion, as on a steamboat, locomotive, or building.

adjective

1. pertaining to, engaged in, or dependent on a basic heavy industry, as steel or automaking:

   smokestack companies.

smokestack

/ ˈsməʊkˌstæk /

noun

1. a tall chimney that conveys smoke into the air Sometimes shortened tostack

Word History and Origins

Origin of smokestack¹

First recorded in 1855–60; smoke + stack

Example Sentences

For instance, they hunted down the locations of industrial smokestacks.

From Freakonomics

The plants are turned on when the need for electricity peaks, which tends to occur in the steamy summer months, igniting rows of fume-spewing smokestacks during peak electricity usage.

From Popular-Science

After the fall of factories, knowledge has become the new face of capitalism with university bell towers lauded as the smokestacks of today’s cities.

From Time

When David asks about the smoke rising from a smokestack at the plant, his father tells him that that’s where the male chicks are burned.

From Time

That’s why another option is to combine hydrogen with carbon—which can be captured from the atmosphere in a process called air capture or from smokestacks—to produce liquid synthetic hydrocarbon fuels that are easier to handle than hydrogen.

From MIT Technology Review

Americans learned to look at a smokestack and see dying trees and fish downwind.

From The Daily Beast

Poison comes out of a smokestack and, downwind, birds fall from the sky.

From The Daily Beast

You seem to be finding a great deal to interest you in that smokestack, young man!

From Project Gutenberg

Railroads cause fires by their locomotives sending out sparks through the smokestack or dropping hot ashes along the right-of-way.

From Project Gutenberg

Sampson had called his sleeping companion, and already the black smoke began to pour out of the smokestack.

From Project Gutenberg

Immediately the boat listed and threw him away from the window, after which he sought a place of safety behind the smokestack.

From Project Gutenberg

Soon after, a heavy roll of the vessel broke the smokestack, and it was pitched overboard.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• industrialized
• mechanical
• modern
• technical