[f. FUME v. + -ING1.] The action of the vb. FUME in various senses.
1529. More, A Dialoge of Comfort against Tribulacion, II. Wks. 1172/2. Rather of his pacience to take both ease & thanke, then by fretting and fuming to encrease his present paine.
1578. Mirr. Mag., Harold, xvi. O Fancy fonde, thy fuminges hath mee fed.
1620. Dekker, Dream Christ’s Coming, Wks. (Grosart), III. 22. Learning burnt bright, without Contentious fuming.
1681–6. J. Scott, Chr. Life (1747), III. vii. 197. This fuming of the Incense by the Priests … was nothing but a mystical Oblation of those Prayers to God.
1693. Salmon, Bates’ Dispens. (1713), 712/1. They [Perfumed Cloves] are used for the fuming of the Bed Chambers of sick People.
1870. R. W. Dale, Week-day Serm., ii. 40. No fuming and fretting will make any difference.
b. The treatment of oak with fumes of ammonia in order to give it an antique appearance.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 27 Feb., 8/1. Oak … shaded to the … tint of the antique work by the process known as ‘fuming.’
c. Photogr. (See quot. 1890.)
1889. Anthony’s Photogr. Bull., II. 347. Paper must be thoroughly dried before fuming.
1890. Woodbury, Encycl. Photogr., Fuming.—A process of subjecting albumenized paper to the fumes of ammonia, by which means the paper prints a trifle quicker, the prints are more brilliant, and the purple tone, so much admired, is more easily obtainable.
d. Comb.: fuming-box, † (a) ‘a pastile-burner’ (Halliwell, 1847); (b) (Photogr.), an apparatus in which the sensitive paper is exposed to the fumes of ammonia; fuming-pot, ‘a brazier or censer’ (Cent. Dict.).
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 925/1. Fuming-box.
1890. Anthony’s Photogr. Bull., III. 68. If paper is is too damp when silvered, long fuming is injurious, while if extremely dry when silvered, and dry when put in the fuming box, long fuming does no harm.
