smolder

• smoulder (chiefly British)

From Middle English smolderen (“to suffocate, stifle”), from Middle English smolder (“smoke, smoky vapour”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *smolōn (“to burn, glow, fume, smoulder”). Related to Proto-West Germanic *smallijan (> English smell).

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsmoʊldɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊldə(ɹ)

smolder (third-person singular simple present smolders, present participle smoldering, simple past and past participle smoldered)

1. (intransitive, now US) To burn with no flame and little smoke.

   The remains of the bonfire were left to smolder for hours.

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene iii:

     Our quiuering Lances ſhaking in the aire,
     And bullets like Ioues dreadfull Thunderbolts,
     Enrolde in flames and fiery ſmoldering miſtes,
     Shall threat the Gods more than Cyclopian warres, […]

2. (intransitive, figuratively) To show signs of repressed anger or suppressed mental turmoil or other strong emotion, such as passion.
3. (intransitive, figuratively) To exist in a suppressed or hidden state.

smolder (plural smolders)

1. The act of smoldering or something that smolders.
   • 2021 September 16, A. A. Dowd, “Dan Stevens as a dashing robot lover? That computes”, in AV Club‎:

     And she’s got a great scene partner in Stevens, refining his star power into a just slightly, almost imperceptibly mechanical approximation of Don Juan smolder. He lets us admire the interface and still see the code ticking away underneath it.

• do a slow burn

• Molders, molders, remolds