See white smoke on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "From the ancient practice of announcing the result of a papal election. If the election was successful, i.e. a candidate received two-thirds majority in the College of Cardinals, the inspected ballots were burned in the stove of the Sistine Chapel of Vatican, resulting in white smoke spewing out from the chimney. If the required majority was not reached, damp straw was added to the stove, resulting in black smoke. A similar effect is achieved in modern times with chemicals.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "white smoke (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "70 17 7 7",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "59 22 9 9",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "69 17 7 7",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "76 12 6 6",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "77 11 6 6",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Catalan translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "71 14 8 8",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Finnish translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "73 16 6 6",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with French translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "74 14 6 6",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Georgian translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "74 13 6 6",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Russian translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "50 17 17 17",
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Catholicism",
"orig": "en:Catholicism",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "100 0 0 0",
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Vatican City",
"orig": "en:Vatican City",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"White-colored smoke serving as an announcement to the outside world that a conclave has chosen a new Pope."
],
"id": "en-white_smoke-en-noun-mFPiu5gk",
"links": [
[
"announcement",
"announcement"
],
[
"outside world",
"outside world"
],
[
"conclave",
"conclave"
],
[
"chosen",
"chosen"
],
[
"Pope",
"Pope"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "99 1 0 0",
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "fum blanc"
},
{
"_dis1": "99 1 0 0",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "fumée blanche"
},
{
"_dis1": "99 1 0 0",
"code": "ka",
"lang": "Georgian",
"roman": "tetri ḳvamli",
"sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
"word": "თეთრი კვამლი"
},
{
"_dis1": "99 1 0 0",
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "bélyj dym",
"sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "бе́лый дым"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
39,
50
]
],
"text": "Sit yourselves down together until the white smoke comes out.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An event of reaching an agreement."
],
"id": "en-white_smoke-en-noun-8JIgNKj8",
"links": [
[
"event",
"event"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively) An event of reaching an agreement."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively",
"uncountable"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "1 99 0 0",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "event of reaching an agreement",
"word": "valkoinen savu"
}
]
},
{
"examples": [
{
"text": "white smoke:"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A shade of white."
],
"id": "en-white_smoke-en-noun-5DAAI17u",
"links": [
[
"white",
"white"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"glosses": [
"The drug methamphetamine."
],
"id": "en-white_smoke-en-noun-G8u-gaFa",
"links": [
[
"methamphetamine",
"methamphetamine"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang) The drug methamphetamine."
],
"tags": [
"slang",
"uncountable"
]
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"white smoke"
],
"word": "white smoke"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English uncountable nouns",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Catalan translations",
"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with French translations",
"Terms with Georgian translations",
"Terms with Russian translations",
"en:Catholicism",
"en:Vatican City"
],
"etymology_text": "From the ancient practice of announcing the result of a papal election. If the election was successful, i.e. a candidate received two-thirds majority in the College of Cardinals, the inspected ballots were burned in the stove of the Sistine Chapel of Vatican, resulting in white smoke spewing out from the chimney. If the required majority was not reached, damp straw was added to the stove, resulting in black smoke. A similar effect is achieved in modern times with chemicals.",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-"
},
"expansion": "white smoke (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"White-colored smoke serving as an announcement to the outside world that a conclave has chosen a new Pope."
],
"links": [
[
"announcement",
"announcement"
],
[
"outside world",
"outside world"
],
[
"conclave",
"conclave"
],
[
"chosen",
"chosen"
],
[
"Pope",
"Pope"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with usage examples"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
39,
50
]
],
"text": "Sit yourselves down together until the white smoke comes out.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An event of reaching an agreement."
],
"links": [
[
"event",
"event"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively) An event of reaching an agreement."
],
"tags": [
"figuratively",
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"examples": [
{
"text": "white smoke:"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A shade of white."
],
"links": [
[
"white",
"white"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English slang"
],
"glosses": [
"The drug methamphetamine."
],
"links": [
[
"methamphetamine",
"methamphetamine"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(slang) The drug methamphetamine."
],
"tags": [
"slang",
"uncountable"
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "fum blanc"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "fumée blanche"
},
{
"code": "ka",
"lang": "Georgian",
"roman": "tetri ḳvamli",
"sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
"word": "თეთრი კვამლი"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "bélyj dym",
"sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "бе́лый дым"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "event of reaching an agreement",
"word": "valkoinen savu"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"white smoke"
],
"word": "white smoke"
}
Download raw JSONL data for white smoke meaning in All languages combined (2.9kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (3dadd05 and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.