v. Also 9 vapour-. [f. L. vapōr- VAPOUR sb. + -IZE. Cf. F. vaporiser.]
1. trans. To convert into smoke, rare–1.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 119, marg. note. Forty load of Tobacco vaporized.
2. To convert into vapor.
α. 1803. Phil. Trans., XCIII. 26. The reguline zinc, vaporized by the heat, rises from the crucible as a metallic gas.
1849. R. V. Dixon, Heat, I. 193. The vapour was projected … with a loud, whistling noise, which subsided when the liquid was all vaporised.
1878. Miss J. J. Young, Ceramic Art, 81. The heat vaporizes the salt, and … the chlorine escapes.
β. 1836. Smart, To vapourize.
1884. J. Burroughs, Locusts & Wild H., 110. The hot air vapourising the drops.
b. In fig. use.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. vi. In figurative language, we might say he becomes … spiritualised, vaporised.
1866. Felton, Anc. & Mod. Gr., I. x. 175. They have not only vaporized her husband into a myth, but have consolidated a myth into a lover.
1888. Dowling, Miracle Gold, III. xxvii. 15. The family estates and honours had been vapourized before that last of the Poniatowskis fell under Napoleon.
3. intr. To become vaporous.
1828–32. Webster, Vaporize,… to pass off in vapor.
1855. Scoffern, in Orr’s Circ. Sci., Elem. Chem., 458. Zinc does not vapourize until the heat is raised to whiteness.
1872. Athenæum, 20 Jan., 84/2. Faraday … stated … that mercury ceased to vapourize below the freezing-point.
1881. Tyndall, Ess. Floating-Matter of Air, 196. The liquid within the narrow tube vaporizes.
fig. 1892. Black & White, 2 April, 423/1. Money seems somehow to have vaporised away, and none knows anything about it.
4. trans. To spray with fine particles of liquid.
1900. O. Onions, Compl. Bachelor, v. 51. My hostess, as a last impertinence, vapourised me in passing with a tiny scent fountain.
Hence Vaporized ppl. a.; Vaporizing vbl. sb. (also attrib.).
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 823. Chambers into which the *vaporized substances are deposited.
1880. Haughton, Phys. Geogr., iii. 124. We must reduce the vaporised water capable of producing rain.
1888. Daily News, 15 May, 6/2. Small launches … propelled by means of vapourised spirit.
1831–3. Encycl. Metrop. (1845), VIII. 189/1. The valve before described, attached to the *vaporizing apparatus.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2690/2. Vaporizing stove, one for furnishing steam to dampen the air of apartments, conservatories, etc.
1886. Jrnl. Education, 1 Aug., 325. Without this all theorising is empty vapourising.
1896. Daily News, 15 July, 8/4. The vaporising and condensing of ammonia.
