smoked

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of smoke.

   The old chimney smoked badly whenever the wind shifted.

   Her grandfather smoked a pipe on the porch every evening.

   Note

   One form covers both jobs: he smoked a pipe, she has smoked for years, the fish was smoked overnight. Which smoke lies behind it matters. A chimney that smoked gave off smoke and took no object, so it has no passive. Only the transitive verbs, for tobacco, food or drying by smoke, yield was smoked, and that passive shades into the adjective for cured food.

2. 2
   adjective

   Of food, treated with smoke to add flavor or to help preserve it.

   The deli cures its smoked turkey for several days before serving.

   Traditional smoked herring keeps for months without refrigeration.

   Note

   The kitchen adjective is the verb's participle put to work. Middle English had smoked, or y-smoked, which is simply smoke plus -ed, the same verb used for preparing food with smoke. It sits before the noun, as in smoked salmon, smoked turkey and smoked herring. It also does not grade: food is smoked or it is not, never "more smoked." The same participle, darkening glass instead of flavoring fish, gives the tinted-glass sense.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of glass, given a dark, grayish tint that reduces the light passing through.

   Like looking through a lightly shaded window.

   The office partition used smoked glass for a measure of privacy.

   Smoked panels along the skylight softened the afternoon glare.

   Similartinted

   Oppositeclear

   Note

   Spectacles are where this tint most often meets the eye. In Chesterton's The Man who was Thursday (1908), a pair of smoked spectacles is all it takes to make children scream at an angelic face. Sydney J. Bounds's The Robot Brains (1957) prescribes smoked glasses to protect the eyes. Read smoked glasses with care: it can mean dark eyewear as easily as tinted panes, and only context tells which.

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