Forms: 4–7, 9 U.S., smolder, 6, 9 smoulder. [Of obscure formation; the first syllable may be related to LG. smölen, smäulen (also smälen, smelen), Du. smeulen, to smolder, Flem. smoel, smul hot.]
Discontinued about (or shortly after) 1600, and revived in the 19th cent.: see the note to the vb.
1. Smother; smoky vapor; the result of smoldering or slow combustion.
c. 1325. Body & Soul, 435, in Map’s Poems (Camden), 345. The eorthe openede up anon, Smoke and smolder up ther wel.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XVII. 321. Whan smoke & smolder smyt in his syȝte.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., I. 929. The fired nuttis smolder throgh shal fle This grettist hole.
c. 1450. Merlin, xv. 248. Men myght se the smolder of the fire x myle longe.
1575. Gascoigne, Flowers, Wks. 49. The smoulder stops our nose with stench, the fume offends our eies.
a. 1626. Bp. Andrewes, 96 Serm., Holy Ghost, xi. (1661), 472. From blood and fire and the smolder of smoke.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. I. viii. Lille too, black with ashes and smoulder.
1851. Borrow, Lavengro, III. xxix. 355. The smoulder and smoke of that fire-ball have rather bewildered my head.
1862. Thornbury, Turner, I. 315. That driving smoulder of fire … indicates the mouth of the fatal cave.
2. A slow-burning fire or the ashes of this.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., 41 b. Of the fyer and smolder did ryse suche a smooke.
1561. Daus, trans. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573), 115 b. It ascendeth … as a smoke out of great smolder.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D. (1889), 398. A barrow-load of the smoulder.
