tobacco

Pluraltobaccos (some meanings), tobaccoes (some meanings)

Formstobaccos, tobaccoing, tobaccoed

1. 1
   noununcountable

   Dried leaves of Nicotiana tabacum and related plants, grown and harvested to make cigarettes, cigars, snuff, and products for pipe-smoking or chewing.

   The barn was full of tobacco hung up to cure before processing.

   Pipe smokers often blend several kinds of tobacco for a milder taste.

   Note

   As a mass noun, the leaf readily becomes a modifier, and in law, finance and public health it stands for a whole industry. The Economist wrote of tobacco-settlement bonds in 2013. A 2025 news report on a generational tobacco ban paired tobacco with e-cigarettes, as policy language now often does. For blends and regional types, English switches to the countable "variety" noun.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Any plant belonging to the genus Nicotiana, a group within the nightshade family.

   Several wild species of tobacco bloom with trumpet-shaped flowers at dusk.

   Botanists study tobacco as a model organism in plant genetics.

   Note

   The botanist's sense, covering every plant in the genus Nicotiana. English has had the word since 1588, from Spanish tabaco. That may come from Arabic ṭubbāq, the name of another plant, or from a Caribbean language such as Taíno or Kari'na, where a similar word meant a roll of leaves or a smoking tube. On that second account, a name for the smoked leaf grew into a name for the plant.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A specific variety or cultivar of tobacco, distinguished by its growing region, curing method, or flavor.

   The shop stocks a dark, smoky tobacco favored by cigar makers.

   Blenders combine several tobaccos to achieve a balanced flavor.

   Note

   Growers and blenders count their leaf, so here tobacco takes an article and a plural. Both tobaccos and tobaccoes are recorded. The varieties are usually named for a place, a color or a use, as in Connecticut Valley tobaccos or wrapper tobaccos. Use this form when the kinds are being compared. Tobacco in general stays uncountable.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To indulge in tobacco by smoking it, whether in a pipe, a cigar, or a cigarette.

   Sailors would tobacco below deck during the long winter voyages.

   He stepped onto the balcony to tobacco before bed.

   Similarsmoke

   Note

   An intransitive verb that takes no object: you simply tobacco, much as you might simply smoke. The forms keep the noun's spelling and add no extra e: tobaccos, tobaccoing, tobaccoed. Spelled that way, tobaccoed looks odd but is correct, and the same forms serve the transitive "treat" verb.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To treat or prepare something by applying tobacco to it.

   Shepherds once tobaccoed their flocks to rid them of parasites.

   Gardeners would tobacco the soil to drive off harmful grubs.

   Note

   Here the verb takes an object: the thing being treated. The Tropical Diseases Bulletin of 1918 used it for pest control in the home. It described tobaccoing houses by stitching the leaves to cloth laid on the floor, and pushing powdered tobacco into rat holes. The word belongs to that practical, household and agricultural setting, where the leaf served as a remedy rather than a pleasure.

Showing meanings only. Show all 5