wafture
English edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈwɑf.t͡ʃɚ/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈwɒf.t͡ʃə/
Noun edit
wafture (countable and uncountable, plural waftures)
- (archaic) Something that is wafted, such as a smell or sound.
- 1873, Lew Wallace, chapter 8, in The Fair God[1], Boston: James R. Osgood, page 253:
- lower roofs, from which, as from hanging gardens, floated waftures sweet as the perfumed airs of the Indian isles
- 1911, Jack London, “The Seed of McCoy”, in South Sea Tales[2], New York: Macmillan, page 267:
- Stray waftures of invisible gases bit his eyes and made them sting.
- 1936, John Cowper Powys, chapter 9, in Maiden Castle[3], Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, published 2001, page 416:
- It is doubtful, however, if she would have allowed quite so deep a wafture of lamentation to have passed her lips had she been alone.
- 2016, Robert Kelly, “XO”, in Opening the Seals[4], Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, page 154:
- and sniff at your waftures / to analyze your lust / and smell the pheromones of everyone you kissed,
- (archaic) The act of wafting something.
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar[5], Act II, Scene 1:
- […] you answer’d not, / But, with an angry wafture of your hand, / Gave sign for me to leave you:
- 1785, Henry Boyd (translator), Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Dublin: P. Byrne, Canto 1, p. 198,[6]
- Then those that sing amid the purging flame, / Inspir’d by ling’ring hope at last to claim / A tardy wafture to the happy shore.
- 1821 October, Charles Lamb, “Witches and Other Night-Fears”, in The London Magazine[7], volume 4, number 22, page 387:
- […] the gentle Thames […] landed me, in the wafture of a placid wave or two, alone, safe and inglorious, somewhere at the foot of Lambeth palace.
- 1922, Angela Morgan, “Afternoon Tea”, in Because of Beauty[8], New York: Dodd, Mead, page 105:
- The trees […] smile and nod and chatter, / Spreading their skirts most graciously, / Gesturing gayly with each wafture of the breeze.