chain-smoke

[cheyn-smohk]

verb (used with or without object)

chain-smoked, chain-smoking 

1. to smoke continually, as by lighting one cigarette, cigar, etc., from the preceding one.

chain-smoke

verb

1. to smoke (cigarettes, etc) continually, esp lighting one from the preceding one

Other Word Forms

• chain smoker noun
• chain-smoker noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of chain-smoke¹

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

On an unseasonably warm Monday nearly six days after the US government shut down, Mr Giba sits underneath the shade of a large tree chain-smoking cigarettes with fellow veterans.

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Eight years later, Birkin, who at one time chain-smoked three packs a day, suffered a stroke.

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Simultaneously cocksure and anxious, he chain-smoked throughout the set, while delivering verbose lyrics about modern love and digital disconnection.

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Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton, who plays chain-smoking crisis manager Tommy Norris in Taylor Sheridan’s latest hit “Landman,” seems like a guy who can’t be intimidated.

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There, the atmosphere hardened from a succession of chain-smoking officers, with whom I had to negotiate in my broken Turkish.

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