fog
UK /fɒɡ/ · US /fɑɡ/ noun, verb
Forms fogs fogging fogged
- noun (uncountable) A thick cloud that forms near the ground; the obscurity of such a cloud. “a bank of fog”
- noun (uncountable) A mist or film clouding a surface.
- noun (figurative) A state of mind characterized by lethargy and confusion. “He did so many drugs, he was still in a fog three months after going through detox.”
- noun (photography) A silver deposit or other blur on a negative or developed photographic image.
- noun (computer graphics) Distance fog.
- verb (intransitive) To become covered with or as if with fog.
- verb (intransitive) To become obscured in condensation or water. “The mirror fogged every time he showered.”
- verb (intransitive, photography) To become dim or obscure.
- verb (transitive, photography) To make dim or obscure.
- verb (transitive, photography) To spoil (film) via exposure to light other than in the normal process of taking a photograph.
- verb (transitive) To cover with or as if with fog.
- verb (transitive) To disperse insecticide into (a forest canopy) so as to collect organisms.
- verb (transitive) To obscure in condensation or water.
- noun A new growth of grass appearing on a field that has been mowed or grazed.
- noun (UK, dialect) Tall and decaying grass left standing after the cutting or grazing season.
- noun (Scotland) Moss.
- verb (transitive) To pasture cattle on the fog (of), or aftergrass, of; to eat off the fog from (a field).
- verb (intransitive) To become covered with the kind of grass called fog.
- verb (intransitive, obsolete) To practice in a small or mean way; to pettifog.
Synonyms
haze mist steam daze become cloudy become steamy blur cloud obscure aftergrass aftermath eddish foggage fogginess murk murkiness befog becloud obnubilate haze over
Etymology
Origin uncertain; but probably of North Germanic origin. Probably either a back-formation from foggy (“covered with tall grass; thick, marshy”), from the earlier-attested fog (“tall grass”) (see below), or from or related to Danish fog (“spray, shower, drift, storm”), related to Icelandic fok (“spray, any light thing tossed by the wind, snowdrift”), Icelandic fjúka (“to blow, drive”), from Proto-Germanic *feukaną (“to whisk, blow”), from Proto-Indo-European *pug- (“billow, bulge, drift”), from *pew-, *pow- (“to blow, drift, billow”), in which case related to German fauchen (“to hiss, spit, spray”).
From Middle English fogge (“tall grass”), probably from Norwegian fogg (“tall, worthless grass”); compare Scots fog (“moss; lichen”).
Compare Old Dutch focker.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Note: Sometimes called, in New England, old tore. In Scotland, fog is a general name for moss.
- verb (Agric.) To pasture cattle on the fog, or aftergrass, of; to eat off the fog from.
- verb To practice in a small or mean way; to pettifog. [Obs.]
- noun Watery vapor condensed in the lower part of the atmosphere and disturbing its transparency. It differs from cloud only in being near the ground, and from mist in not approaching so nearly to fine rain.
Etymology [Cf. Scot. fog, fouge, moss, foggag rank grass, LL. fogagium, W. ffug dry grass.]
Etymology [Etymol. uncertain.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “fog”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details