[SMOKE sb.]
1. An apparatus for turning a roasting-spit, fixed in a chimney and set in motion by the current of air passing up this.
1675. Evelyn, Lett., in Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Surrey (1718), I. A 6 b. The Smoke-Jack in my Brother’s Kitchen-Chimney; which has been there, I have heard, near a hundred Years.
1754. Mrs. Delany, Life & Corr. (1861), III. 301–2. I think I will have a smoke-jack, the man says he will take care and keep it in order for nothing.
1777. in Crts. Europe at Close of Last Cent. (1841), I. 180. Did you never see a smoke-jack, with a little man in red working away, and seemingly turning the wheel, and setting the whole machine in motion?
1832. Babbage, Econ. Manuf., iv. (ed. 3), 36. The common smoke-jack is an instrument in which the velocity communicated is too great for the purpose required.
1884. Jefferies, Red Deer, ix. 172. In how few, even of the most ancient houses, are smoke-jacks still at work!
attrib. 1758. Franklin, Lett., Wks. 1840, VI. 536. This property of chimneys might, by means of smokejack vanes, be applied to some mechanical purposes.
† b. transf. The head, as the seat of confused ideas. Obs.
1761. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, III. xx. As for my uncle Toby, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, before he fell asleep also.
1808. E. S. Barrett, Miss-led General, 54. The ball grazed against that part of the human frame which, in rational mortals, is denominated the seat of reason; in others, a smoke jack.
2. U.S. A cowl or hood for the end of a railway-carriage stove-pipe (Cent. Dict., 1891).
3. A cargo-steamer.
1892. Daily News, 3 Feb., 5/5. Too bad! No; it may do for a ‘smoke-jack’ to lay off and wait for the fog, but not for a passenger ship with mails. She must go on and keep her time.
4. A smoke-nuisance inspector.
1898. Daily News, 21 Nov., 8/6. The officer who carried out this duty was called a Smoke Jack.
