smoking

The word “smoking” means the act of inhaling and exhaling smoke from tobacco or another substance. In plain terms, the habit or act of inhaling burning tobacco smoke, or (adjective) giving off smoke — or, informally, extremely attractive.

“Smoking” is pronounced SMOH-kihng (/ˈsmoʊkɪŋ/ in IPA).

Here is “smoking” used in a sentence: “Smoking is banned inside most restaurants now.”

Depending on how it is used, “smoking” can be a noun and an adjective.

“Smoking” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

“Smoking” has 3 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: the act of inhaling and exhaling smoke from tobacco or another substance.

Yes. Inhaling smoke from tobacco exposes the lungs and body to tar, nicotine, and thousands of chemicals, and it is strongly linked to heart disease, lung damage, and cancer. Health authorities worldwide treat it as a leading preventable cause of illness, which is why quitting is so widely encouraged.

Smoking burns tobacco and produces smoke that you inhale, releasing tar and combustion by-products. Vaping heats a liquid into an aerosol without burning, so it avoids some of those by-products. Both can deliver nicotine and carry health concerns, but the key distinction is combustion: smoking burns, while vaping does not.

Common forms include cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and water pipes such as hookah or shisha, and people also smoke substances other than tobacco. Terms also distinguish active smoking, where a person inhales directly, from passive or secondhand smoking, where others breathe in the smoke drifting around them.

Passive smoking, also called secondhand smoking, is breathing in smoke released by someone else's cigarette or exhaled by a smoker nearby. Even without smoking yourself, you take in many of the same harmful chemicals, which is why smoke-free rules exist in workplaces, restaurants, and other public spaces.