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Fume vs Irritate - What's the difference?

fume | irritate |

As verbs the difference between fume and irritate

is that fume is to emit fumes while irritate is to provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure.

As a noun fume

is a gas or vapour/vapor that smells strongly or is dangerous to inhale. Fumes are solid particles formed by condensation from the gaseous state, e.g. metal oxides from volatilized metals. They can flocculate and coalesce. Their particle size is between 0.1 and 1 micron. (A micron is one millionth of a metre.

fume

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A gas or vapour/vapor that smells strongly or is dangerous to inhale. Fumes are solid particles formed by condensation from the gaseous state, e.g. metal oxides from volatilized metals. They can flocculate and coalesce. Their particle size is between 0.1 and 1 micron. (A micron is one millionth of a metre)
  • Don't stand around in there breathing the fumes while the adhesive cures.
  • * T. Warton
  • the fumes of new shorn hay
  • A material that has been vaporized from the solid state to the gas state and re-coalesced to the solid state.
  • Rage or excitement which deprives the mind of self-control.
  • the fumes of passion
    (South)
  • Anything unsubstantial or airy; idle conceit; vain imagination.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • a show of fumes and fancies
  • The incense of praise; inordinate flattery.
  • * Burton
  • to smother him with fumes and eulogies

    Verb

    (fum)
  • To emit fumes.
  • * Milton
  • where the golden altar fumed
  • * Roscommon
  • Silenus lay, / Whose constant cups lay fuming to his brain.
  • To expose something (especially wood) to ammonia fumes in order to produce dark tints.
  • To feel or express great anger.
  • He's still fuming about the argument they had yesterday.
  • * Dryden
  • He frets, he fumes , he stares, he stamps the ground.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • Her mother did fret, and her father did fume .
  • To be as in a mist; to be dulled and stupefied.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Keep his brain fuming .
  • To pass off in fumes or vapours.
  • * Cheyne
  • Their parts are kept from fuming away by their fixity.

    Usage notes

    * In the sense of strong-smelling or dangerous vapor, the noun is typically plural, as in the example. ----

    irritate

    English

    Verb

    (irritat)
  • (lb) To provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure.
  • *
  • *:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
  • (lb) To introduce irritability or irritation in.
  • (lb) To cause or induce displeasure or irritation.
  • (lb) To induce pain in (all or part of a body or organism).
  • (lb) To render null and void.
  • :(Archbishop Bramhall)
  • Synonyms

    * provoke * rile

    Antonyms

    * please

    See also

    * exasperate * peeve * disturb English intransitive verbs English transitive verbs ----