exhaust fumes
3
3.2
- noun
- /ɪɡˈzɔst fjuːmz/
:
gases de escape
- My throat was dry from exhaust fumes.
Examples
-
Around us, the air is filled with exhaust fumes that seem to stick to our skin and then bead down our foreheads.
Academic text (2006) -
The sky is white with clouds, and there are gray exhaust fumes hovering above the cars.
Fiction book (1992) -
The vehicle left hardly any exhaust fumes behind it.
Fiction book (1990) -
The air was acrid in his nostrils, heavy with exhaust fumes.
Fiction book (1991) -
The car rattles, coughs, then finally roars off in a cloud of noxious exhaust fumes.
Fiction book (1994) -
Reeking exhaust fumes rose from the packed roadways into the warm, hazy air in shimmering waves.
Fiction book (1999) -
The air was stale and smelled of exhaust fumes, with a lingering undertaste of garbage, the remnants of a spring municipal workers' strike.
Fiction book (1996) -
The bus pulled away, taking with it the throaty roar of its engine, but leaving behind its exhaust fumes, puffy dark deposits thinning into the mid-morning air.
Fiction book (1996) -
The children had to cover their mouths to avoid inhaling the dangerous exhaust fumes from the running vehicle.
-
After the car broke down, we had to wait in the garage, surrounded by strong exhaust fumes from the engine.
Synonyms
711
1.0
A cloud of tiny particles and gas made by burning something
198
4.6
A substance like gas or smoke that is released into the air
28
3.8
The waste gases that come out of a car engine
Harmful gases that smell bad and come from engines or machines
Antonyms
How Harmful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'exhaust' (gases emitted by an engine) with 'fumes' (waste gases); a learner who knows both words can infer this refers to gases produced and released by a vehicle engine. This noun-noun composition follows a standard compositional pattern with clear cross-linguistic parallels, so it should be immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The noun exhaust fumes comes from a simple picture: a car engine pushes out waste gases, so exhaust means the engine's used gases and fumes are the smoky gases that come out of the tailpipe. That's why the phrase means 'gases or smoke produced by a vehicle engine'.