chimney

Pluralchimneys

Formschimneys, chimneying, chimneyed

1. 1
   smoke pipe (building)nouncountable

   A vertical pipe or hollow column through which polluting smoke, gases and solid particles, such as the by-products of burning fuel, are let out; a flue.

   We had the chimney swept before lighting the first fire of the winter.

   Tall chimneys towered over the steelworks, pouring soot into the sky.

   Similarsmokestack, flue, stack

   Note

   The word came into English through Old French from a Greek word for a furnace, so its roots lie in the fire rather than in the pipe above it; chimenea is the same word arriving by a different route. In Scotland and Northern England the local word is lum. The plural is chimneys, and the spelling chimnies turns up only in older texts.

2. 2
   rock cracknouncountable

   A narrow cleft in a rock face, or a narrow passage that runs vertically through a cave.

   The route follows a deep chimney that splits the cliff for sixty feet.

   Beyond the flooded chamber, a tight chimney leads up into a second, drier cave.

   Similarcleft, crack, fissure, shaft

3. 3
   lamp glassnouncountable

   In an oil lamp, the glass tube that encloses the flame and acts as a flue.

   He lifted the chimney off the oil lamp and trimmed the wick.

   With its chimney cracked, the kerosene lamp flickered and smoked all evening.

4. 4
   smoke pipe (train)nounBritishcountable

   The stack on a steam locomotive through which smoke is carried away.

   Sparks flew from the locomotive's chimney as it laboured up the bank.

   Volunteers at the heritage railway repainted the chimney of the old tank engine.

   Similarsmokestack, funnel, stack

   Note

   British railway talk calls this part the chimney, where the same part is a smokestack or simply a stack in other varieties of English. In a British account of a steam engine at work, smoke and sparks pour from the chimney, and the word carries no hint of a house or a fireplace.

5. 5
   climb (rock)verbintransitive

   To make one's way through a chimney, a narrow vertical cave passage, by pushing against its sides with the back, feet, hands and other parts of the body.

   The only way out of the shaft was to chimney up its last thirty feet.

   He chimneyed down the crack, back pressed to one wall and boots braced against the other.

   Note

   Climbers often work up a chimney back-and-foot: the back presses one wall, the feet push against the other, and the climber edges upward by shifting pressure between them. A wider gap is bridged with hands and feet spread across it. The verb comes straight from the narrow rock passage it is used for, and it is regular: chimneyed, chimneying.

6. 6
   black eyenounslangNorthern Irelandcountable

   A black eye, the dark bruise around an eye left by a blow.

   He turned up at the pub on Saturday sporting a right chimney.

   Say that again and I'll give you a chimney to go with your fat lip.

   Similarshiner

   Note

   This is Northern Irish slang, best kept to casual talk among friends. Outside Northern Ireland it is likely to draw blank looks, so black eye or shiner is the safe choice there. It takes the same verbs they do: you get, give or sport a chimney.

7. 7
   vaginanounvulgareuphemisticcountable

   A vulgar euphemism for the vagina.

   Note

   Its home is the dirty joke and the bawdy song, where the household meaning gives it cover. It is vulgar in any company, and because listeners expect the household chimney, the word works as a double meaning far more often than as a plain name; using it of a real person is crude and insulting.

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