[f. as prec.]
1. Acting or talking in a pretentious or high-flown manner.
1647. R. Josselin, Diary (1908), 45. 25 Troops came to quarter with us, somewhat bold and vapouring.
c. 1670. O. Heywood, Diaries (1881), II. 311. To make big of it, as if it did constitute us righteous before god, as the vapouring pharisee.
1691. The Bragadocio, 22. ’Tis that Fierce, Vapouring, Coward, Bravado, I fancy.
1794. Manners France, 29. Prussia’s fame and Glory’s fled, And you’re a vapouring fool.
1834. Gentl. Mag., CIV. I. 26. The bustling, vapouring, chattering Duke of Newcastle.
1842. Thackeray, Contrib. to Punch, Wks. 1900, VI. 47. It is always a comfort to read of those absurd vapouring vainglorious Frenchmen obtaining a beating.
1864. C. Knight, Passages Work. Life, I. i. 57. The burly Englishman regarded the vapouring little man with something like the contempt which we felt, or affected to feel, for him was was threatening to exterminate us.
2. Having a fantastical, pretentious, or foolishly boastful character.
1649. trans. Boehme’s Epistles, To Rdr. (1886), 2. The frame and structure of our knowledge, which by our artificial reason we should build unto ourselves upon that foundation, would be but a vapouring notion.
1721. Strype, Eccl. Mem., xvii. II. 380. They told Barnaby, in a vapouring sort, (which that Nation was then much addicted to) how little Harm England in their Wars was like to do them.
1795. Burke, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. II. IV. 542. We shall not … employ a person capable of writing such miserable, vapouring and empty stuff.
1806. Surr, Winter in Lond., III. 240. The vapouring vanity of one struggling against opinion, and fearing to sink in human estimation.
1859. Green, Oxf. Stud. (O.H.S.), 165. In this burst of vapouring Toryism open persecution had at last reached its close.
1877. Owen, Wellesley’s Desp., p. xxxiii. Buonaparte’s vapouring letter to Tippoo and gasconading demeanour in Egypt.
3. Full of vapor; emitting or giving off a vapor.
1648. Hexham, II. Een domp-gat, a smoakie or a vapouring hole.
1800. Coleridge, Piccolom., II. i. Now the vapouring wine Opens the heart and shuts the eyes.
4. Of the nature of vapor; vaporous.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 192.
| As vap’ring clouds by summer’s suns are driven, | |
| Sin’s temptings from the scriptures’ charm recoil, | |
| And all her soul transported seems in heaven. |
1854. S. Dobell, Balder, xxv. 181. Like some great vapouring cloud Topping a cumulous heaven of mysteries.
Hence Vapo[u]ringly adv.
1653. Lilburn Tryed & Cast, 154. It would make a man smile, to read what hee vapouringly talks.
1767. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, IX. iii. The Corporal … gave a slight flourish with his stick—but not vapouringly.
1852. H. S. Foote, in Flag of the Union, 13 Feb., 2/4. After a second defeat, they [the secessionists] began to talk vaporingly about renewing the June platform once more.
1892. Sat. Rev., 20 Aug., 209/2. [He] spoke rather vapouringly … about the House of Lords.
