"white smoke" meaning in English

See white smoke in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: 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. Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} white smoke (uncountable)
  1. The announcement to the outside world that a conclave has chosen a new Pope. Tags: uncountable Translations (announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope): fum blanc [masculine] (Catalan), fumée blanche [feminine] (French)
    Sense id: en-white_smoke-en-noun-8AEe8N0Y Disambiguation of 'announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope': 96 1 1 2
  2. (figuratively) An event of reaching an agreement. Tags: figuratively, uncountable Translations (event of reaching an agreement): valkoinen savu (Finnish)
    Sense id: en-white_smoke-en-noun-8JIgNKj8 Disambiguation of 'event of reaching an agreement': 1 98 1 1
  3. A shade of white. Tags: uncountable
    Sense id: en-white_smoke-en-noun-5DAAI17u
  4. Methamphetamine. Tags: uncountable
    Sense id: en-white_smoke-en-noun-anNd~YEd Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 10 2 10 77

Download JSON data for white smoke meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "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.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "white smoke (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "The announcement to the outside world that a conclave has chosen a new Pope."
      ],
      "id": "en-white_smoke-en-noun-8AEe8N0Y",
      "links": [
        [
          "announcement",
          "announcement"
        ],
        [
          "outside world",
          "outside world"
        ],
        [
          "conclave",
          "conclave"
        ],
        [
          "chosen",
          "chosen"
        ],
        [
          "Pope",
          "Pope"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "96 1 1 2",
          "code": "ca",
          "lang": "Catalan",
          "sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "fum blanc"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 1 1 2",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "announcement that a conclave has chosen a new Pope",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "fumée blanche"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Sit yourselves down together until the white smoke comes out."
        }
      ],
      "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 98 1 1",
          "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": [
        {
          "_dis": "10 2 10 77",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Methamphetamine."
      ],
      "id": "en-white_smoke-en-noun-anNd~YEd",
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "white smoke"
  ],
  "word": "white smoke"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncountable nouns"
  ],
  "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.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "white smoke (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "The 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"
      ]
    },
    {
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Sit yourselves down together until the white smoke comes out."
        }
      ],
      "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"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Methamphetamine."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "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": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "event of reaching an agreement",
      "word": "valkoinen savu"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "white smoke"
  ],
  "word": "white smoke"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). 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.