smolder
Americanverb (used without object)
-
to burn without flame; undergo slow or suppressed combustion.
-
to exist or continue in a suppressed state or without outward demonstration.
Hatred smoldered beneath a polite surface.
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to display repressed feelings, as of indignation, anger, or the like.
to smolder with rage.
noun
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dense smoke resulting from slow or suppressed combustion.
-
a smoldering fire.
verb
Other Word Forms
- unsmoldering adjective
Etymology
Origin of smolder
1275–1325; (noun) Middle English smolder smoky vapor, dissimilated variant of smorther smother; (v.) Middle English (as present participle smolderende ), derivative of the noun
Explanation
When a fire is barely burning, it's smoldering. Fires can smolder for days without anyone's knowing, then burst into a conflagration that gets the fire department sirens wailing all over town. Smolder is a word that is often used figuratively to describe situations or people's feelings. You might say tensions between the North and South smoldered for years before the outbreak of the Civil War. And if your school cafeteria eliminates tater tots from the menu, students' smoldering dissatisfaction with the menu options might erupt into all-out food fight.
Vocabulary lists containing smolder
List 8
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Hatchet
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Touching Spirit Bear
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"Peatlands and organic soils can smolder for weeks to years, releasing enormous amounts of ancient carbon."
From Science Daily • Mar. 4, 2026
As a result, they may overlook slower, less visible fires that smolder deep within peat and organic soils.
From Science Daily • Mar. 4, 2026
Passions still smolder below the surface, but there is not enough oxygen to let them flame into life.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 7, 2026
Embers from that blaze, called the Lachman fire, continued to smolder for days underground before being released amid hurricane-force winds, becoming the Palisades fire.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 11, 2025
And though he, too, doesn’t speak, his dark eyes smolder, telling me something I don’t quite understand.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
