Meanings
- not comparableGiving off steam, water vapour or smoke.
1906, Oliver Onions, “Back o’ the Moon” in Back o’ the Moon and Other Stories, London: Hurst and Blackett, Chapter 17, p. 238, The fire burned here and there for a fortnight, and then there came a light shower or two that set the hills a-steam with opaque white smoke.
2 more examples
1845, Hugh Miller, cited in Thomas Brown (ed.), Annals of the Disruption, Edinburgh: MacLaren & MacNiven, 1877, Part 2, p. 37, The rude turf building we found full from end to end, and all asteam with a particularly wet congregation, some of whom […] had travelled in the soaking drizzle from the further extremities of the island.
In the parcels office there were small cooking stoves, asteam with the aroma of boiling rice, set on the desks among the glue pots and brown paper, cardboard boxes of opened parcels.
1988, Tristan Jones, Somewheres East of Suez, Dobbs Ferry, NY: Sheridan House, published 1999, Part 3, Chapter 17, p. 227Synonyms: steaming
- not comparableCovered with condensation.
Sara, her eyeglasses asteam, was stirring a big pot of quahog chowder.
1965, Stanton Forbes, chapter 2, in Relative to Death, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 271 more example
“Go ahead!” he screamed, his glasses asteam and opaque. “We can’t read it anyway! Go ahead! Rain on it!”
1987, Mitch Berman, Time Capsule, New York: Putnam, Part 1, Chapter 12, p. 73Synonyms: fogged up
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveGiving off steam, water vapour or smoke.
adjectiveCovered with condensation.
Origin
Cite this entry
asteam. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/asteam
“asteam.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/asteam. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “asteam,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/asteam.
Source: asteam on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.