Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Condensed water vapor in cloudlike masses lying close to the ground and limiting visibility.
- n. An obscuring haze, as of atmospheric dust or smoke.
- n. A mist or film clouding a surface, as of a window, lens, or mirror.
- n. A cloud of vaporized liquid, especially a chemical spray used in fighting fires.
- n. A state of mental vagueness or bewilderment.
- n. Something that obscures or conceals; a haze: shrouded their actions in a fog of disinformation.
- n. A blur on a developed photographic image.
- v. To cover or envelop with or as if with fog.
- v. To cause to be obscured; cloud.
- v. To make vague, hazy, or confused: a memory that had been fogged by time.
- v. To obscure or dim (a photographic image).
- v. To be covered with or as if with fog.
- v. To be blurred, clouded, or obscured: My glasses fogged in the warm air.
- v. To be dimmed or obscured. Used of a photographic image.
- n. A new growth of grass appearing on a field that has been mowed or grazed.
- n. Tall, decaying grass left standing after the cutting or grazing season.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The aggregation of a vast number of minute globules of water in the air near the earth's surface, usually produced by the cooling of the air below the dew-point, whereby a portion of its vapor is condensed. The cooling may be the result of radiation, conduction, mixture with colder air, or ascension. Over surfaces of water warmer than the air the fog produced by cooling is increased by the continued evaporation of the water into the already saturated air. Solid particles in the air constitute nuclei for condensation, and are thereby great promoters of the formation of fog. In a ship's log-book, abbreviated feminine
- n. Hence A state of mental obscurity or confusion: as, to be in a fog of doubt.
- n. In photography, a uniform coating covering a developed plate, more or less destructive to the picture in proportion to its opacity. It results from chemical impurities, from exposure of the sensitized film to light, from errors in manipulation, etc.
- To envelop with or as with fog; shroud in mist or gloom; obscure; befog.
- To cloud or coat with a uniform coating or discoloration, as in photography: as, an over-alkaline developer will fog the plate. see fog, n., 3.
- To become covered or filled with fog.
- In photography, to become clouded or coated with a uniform coating or discoloration: said of a negative in course of development. See fog, n., 3.
- n. Aftergrass; a second growth of grass; aftermath; also, long grass that remains on land through the winter; foggage.
- n. Moss.
- To feed off the fog or pasture in winter: as, to fog cattle.
- To eat off the fog from: as, to fog a field.
- To become covered with fog or moss.
- To seek gain by base or servile practices (whence pettifogger).
- Gross; fat; clumsy.
- n. An atmospheric haze due to the presence of fine solid matter, such as dust or fine soot from soft coal fires or ashes from forest and prairie fires. These carbon particles collect about themselves special atmospheres of aqueous vapor and other gases. The spectrum of the transmitted light shows only the red and ultra-red waves. As the upper layers of the dry fog cool off by radiation and the little atmospheres of vapor become water, the dry fog changes to a drizzling mist and often to steady rain. Prairie fires and the resultant dry fog are mentioned by Marco Polo in his travels in India.
Wiktionary
- n. A thick cloud that forms near the ground; the obscurity of such a cloud.
- n. A mist or film clouding a surface.
- n. A state of mind characterized by lethargy and confusion.
- n. A silver deposit or other blur on a negative or developed photographic image.
- n. A new growth of grass appearing on a field that has been mowed or grazed.
- n. Tall and decaying grass left standing after the cutting or grazing season.
- n. Moss.
- v. To become covered with or as if with fog.
- v. To become obscured in condensation or water.
- v. To become dim or obscure.
- v. To cover with or as if with fog.
- v. To obscure in condensation or water.
- v. To make confusing or obscure.
- v. To make dim or obscure.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A second growth of grass; aftergrass.
- n. Dead or decaying grass remaining on land through the winter; -- called also
foggage . - v. To pasture cattle on the fog, or aftergrass, of; to eat off the fog from.
- v. To practice in a small or mean way; to pettifog.
- n. Watery vapor condensed in the lower part of the atmosphere and disturbing its transparency. It differs from cloud only in being near the ground, and from mist in not approaching so nearly to fine rain. See cloud.
- n. A state of mental confusion.
- n. Cloudiness or partial opacity of those parts of a developed film or a photograph which should be clear.
- v. To envelop, as with fog; to befog; to overcast; to darken; to obscure.
- v. To render semiopaque or cloudy, as a negative film, by exposure to stray light, too long an exposure to the developer, etc.
- v. To show indistinctly or become indistinct, as the picture on a negative sometimes does in the process of development.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make less visible or unclear
- n. droplets of water vapor suspended in the air near the ground
- n. confusion characterized by lack of clarity
- n. an atmosphere in which visibility is reduced because of a cloud of some substance
Etymologies
- Perhaps of Scandinavian origin.Middle English fogge, tall grass; see pū̆- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Trying to string together coherent sentences though the brain fog is hard.”
“Dew is a precipitation of moisture which has not entered the peculiar state which we term fog or cloud, but has remained invisible in the air.”
Outlines of the Earth's History A Popular Study in Physiography
“For the private sector, one of the most important signals that cuts through the fog is the profit and loss statement.”
Policy in a Fog, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“FRANK WUTERICH: It's clear that innocent civilians died that day, but they died according to what we call the fog of war.”
“But they died according to what we call the fog of war.”
“The convoy has disappeared into what they call the fog of war.”
“BOETTCHER: The convoy has disappeared into what they call the fog of war.”
“A genuine London fog seems not like the heavy gray mist which we know as a fog, but, as Dickens says, like "palpable brown air.”
“Shingling on the fog is the great indoor sport for the professional redeemer and uplifter of society; but you don't get very far in a horizontal position on that kind of a foundation.”
“Of course, the post-chemotherapy brain fog is perfect inspiration for writing from the point of view of a guy who’s lost his memory.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fog’.
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Up In The Air @ Wordnik
List of words, terms, and phrases pertaining to or referencing anything that lives, traverses, moves in, uses, or otherwise occupies the space above the ground we walk on. Words and phrases contain...
aeroallergen, aerial, aerial mapping, aerial root, aerobe, aerobiology, aerobioscope, aelophilous, anemotropism, anemoclastic, anafront, antitrades and 270 more...
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ghost
This is Ghost List 2 ( the kind that go 'boo!' ) :P
phantom, spectral, specter, spectre, spooky, poltergeist, haunt, spirit, banshee, cryptic, shadow, phantasm and 294 more...
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3 Letter Words
A list of English words that are three letters long.
ace, act, ade, ado, add, ads, age, ago, ail, air, aim, all and 397 more...
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Cloudy
with a chance of mizzle
puff, nebulous, fog, overcast, becloud, bedim, taint, befog, dapple, mottle, sully, pother and 83 more...

john “Dr. Haas collaborated with BlackGold Biofuels, a small Philadelphia company that has developed a process for making biodiesel fuel out of a wide range of nonedible, low-value “fog” — the industry shorthand for fats, oils and grease.”
The New York Times, Butter Holds the Secret to the Latest Biodiesel Fuel, by Kenneth Chang, August 9, 2010 Aug 11, 2010
sonofgroucho Not nice to drive through (as I did last night), but can be quite pretty. Dec 21, 2007
oroboros The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on. Oct 20, 2007