steam

Formssteams, steaming, steamed

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The hot gaseous form of water, produced when water boils and changes from a liquid into a gas.

   Steam billowed from the kettle as the water reached a rolling boil.

   The bathroom filled with steam after her long, hot shower.

   Similarvapor

   Note

   The core sense, and an old one. Old English stēam meant steam and hot breath, and also anything that gives off vapor, and even blood. It came from a Germanic word for vapor and breath. The Indo-European root behind it covered whirling, wafting, smoke and haze, so the later uses for breath and mist return to where the word began.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Water vapor held under pressure and used for heating, cooking, or to provide mechanical energy.

   The factory's turbines were driven by high-pressure steam.

   Steam hissed through the pipes, warming each room in the house.

3. 3
   nounfigurativelyuncountable

   Anger that has been held back and built up inside, ready to be released.

   Years of being ignored had built up a head of steam in him.

   He vented his steam on the punching bag instead of his coworkers.

   Similaranger, rage

   Note

   Here the engine image is a safety valve: anger builds like pressure and has to be let out. The set phrase is blow off steam, usually for a harmless release, such as a walk outside, rather than an attack on someone. A head of steam can mean either rage or momentum, so the context decides which.

4. 4
   verbfigurativelyintransitive

   To grow angry and seethe, fuming inwardly at something.

   Drivers steam when they're stuck in traffic for hours.

   He steamed at the insult but said nothing.

   Similarfume, seethe, boil

5. 5
   nounfigurativelyuncountable

   The inner energy or driving force that keeps something moving forward or making progress.

   The campaign gathered steam as more volunteers joined.

   He finished the marathon under his own steam, refusing all help.

   Similarmomentum, impetus, energy

   Note

   A figure borrowed from the vapor that drives engines, and most at home in the idiom under one's own steam: by one's own effort, with nobody carrying or pushing you. Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, in Ladies and Gentlemen (1927), has people put steam into a job, as one might stoke a boiler. It is almost always uncountable. You have more steam or less, and rarely a steam.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To cook food by exposing it to steam rather than boiling or frying it.

   Steam the dumplings until the wrappers turn translucent.

   Many cooks steam broccoli to keep its bright green color.

   Note

   The kitchen verb takes the food as its object: you steam artichokes, dumplings or broccoli. The method keeps the food out of the water, which is why recipes reach for it to keep color and texture. When the food itself becomes the subject, the verb turns intransitive, as in the artichokes are steaming.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The process of cooking food by exposing it to steam.

   A brief steam keeps the greens crisp and bright.

   The recipe calls for a ten-minute steam over high heat.

   Note

   A cook's noun that turns countable despite its usual mass use: a ten-minute steam, a brief steam, with an article and often a length of time in front. Give the carrots a steam follows the same pattern as give it a stir or a rinse, where the noun names one round of the action rather than the vapor itself.

8. 8
   verbintransitive

   To rise or escape upward as vapor from a warm or wet surface.

   The wet rooftops steam in the early morning sun.

   Fresh manure steamed in the frosty paddock.

   Note

   The subject is the vapor or the warm surface it rises from: breath steams in winter air, and wet roofs steam in the sun. Away completes the verb when a substance slowly vanishes. Robert Boyle (1661) describes dissolved amber that "little by little it steamed away into the air." Compare the venting verb, where a kettle or engine gives the steam off.

9. 9
   verbintransitive

   To produce or vent steam, as a machine or kettle does.

   The engines steam loudly as they build up pressure.

   The radiator steamed all through the cold night.

   Note

   On the footplate it becomes a verdict. An engine that steams freely makes its steam easily, and 'Balmore', writing in 1961 on French locomotives, found the Chapelon steamed almost too freely. Older use is plain and vivid: John Dryden's The Indian Emperour (1665) has a ghost hovering over warm blood "that steems into the Air."

10. 10
    verbintransitive

    To move forward with great or excessive determination.

    She steamed past the slower walkers without a word.

    Reporters steam toward any hint of scandal.

    Similarcharge, rush, barrel, storm

    Note

    The engine's force passes to people and campaigns: someone steams off, steams into the box, or steams to victory. It suggests unstoppable momentum and sometimes bluster. A man storms off to lecture fruit pickers, and Malouda arrives in the penalty area in Chris Whyatt's BBC match report of 2010. The image grows from travel under steam power.

Showing meanings only. Show all 23