smog

Etymology

It is a blend from English smoke + fog.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} Klein, cited by Etymonline, describes it as formed after Lewis Carroll's example, a portmanteau word.^[3] It is reputedly coined in reference to London fog.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Fog intensified by smoke: 1905, in the Daily Graphic of 26 July,^[2][8] reporting a paper by Dr H. A. des Vœux at the Public Health Congress in London.^[8][4][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1884 as its first known use.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Des Vœux, of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, spoke of "smoky fog, or what was known as 'smog'", and the next day the Globe credited him with coining a new word for the London fog.^[8][4] Etymonline notes that he seems not to have claimed the coinage himself, and quotes the Journal of the American Medical Association of 26 August 1905, which found the word not pretty but apt.^[3] The American Heritage Dictionary observes that the word followed the thing by perhaps half a century, since air pollution was noticed in the Industrial Revolution.^[8] Weekley quoted the Daily Chronicle in 1919 on what "one eminent doctor" had called "smog", coal-smoke-fog.^[10] The word later covered the photochemical haze produced when sunlight acts on hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides from car exhaust.^[9][11] A figurative sense, a state of obscurity or confusion, is recorded from 1954,^[2][6] and the verb, to cover with smog, from 1966, chiefly in North America.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the blend smaze, with haze, to 1953.^[3] In US slang smog has also meant to smoke marijuana and, in prison slang, to execute with lethal gas.^[12]

Timeline

• 1905 – fog intensified by smoke.^[2][4]
• 1954 – figurative, a state of obscurity or confusion.^[2]
• 1966 – verb, to cover or envelop in smog.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Fog made heavier and darker by smoke and chemical fumes: A thick smog hung over the harbour.^[13][9][2]
2. A photochemical haze formed when sunlight acts on air polluted by hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, especially from car exhaust.^[9][11]
3. Something that obscures or confuses, like smog.^[2][9][6]

Verb

1. (with up or out) To cover or envelop in smog.^[2][6]

Word family

• smoggy
• smogless
• antismog

Related words

• smoke
• fog
• smaze

Usage notes

Shetland dialect had an unrelated noun smog, a narrow passage or a hiding place, which Wright compared with Old Norse smuga (“a narrow cleft to creep through”).^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
12. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)