Soot

/sʊt/ noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Fine black or dull brown particles of amorphous carbon and tar, produced by the incomplete combustion of coal, oil etc. uncountable, usually
  2. 2
    a black colloidal substance consisting wholly or principally of amorphous carbon and used to make pigments and ink wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To cover or dress with soot. transitive

    "soot land"

  2. 2
    coat with soot wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
carbon blacklampblackair pollutionalluvionalluviumash

Example

More examples

"Eva climbed the stairs to Romer's office, trying to analyse the complex smell in the stairwell - a cross between mushrooms and soot, ancient stour and mildew, she decided."

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English soot, soote, sote, sot, from Old English sōt, from Proto-Germanic *sōtą (“soot”), from Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”). Cognate with dated Dutch zoet (“soot”), German Low German Soot (“soot”), Danish sod (“soot”), Swedish sot (“soot”), Icelandic sót (“soot”). Compare similar ō-grade formation the same Proto-Indo-European root in Old Irish suide (“soot”) and Balto-Slavic: Lithuanian súodžiai (“soot”), and Proto-Slavic *saďa (“soot”) (Russian са́жа (sáža), Polish and Slovak sadza, Bulgarian са́жда (sážda)).

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