VAPOURS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does vapours mean? 

• VAPOURS (noun)
  The noun VAPOURS has 1 sense:

1. a state of depression

  Familiarity information: VAPOURS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VAPOURS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of depression

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

blue devils; blues; megrims; vapors; vapours

Context example:

he had a bad case of the blues

Hypernyms ("vapours" is a kind of...):

depression (a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity)

 Context examples 

I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

As soon as the sun had climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell with all its force upon the clearing and drank up the vapours at a draught.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Besides, as it is in the power of the monarch to raise the island above the region of clouds and vapours, he can prevent the falling of dews and rain whenever he pleases.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Unlike man, whose gods are of the unseen and the overguessed, vapours and mists of fancy eluding the garmenture of reality, wandering wraiths of desired goodness and power, intangible out-croppings of self into the realm of spirit—unlike man, the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to the fire find their gods in the living flesh, solid to the touch, occupying earth-space and requiring time for the accomplishment of their ends and their existence.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)