Meanings
- historicaluncountableHearth tax.
As early as the conquest mention is made in domesday book of fumage or fuage, vulgarly called smoke farthings; which were paid by custom to the king for every chimney in the house
1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC1 more example
A FUMAGE, or tax of smoke farthings, or hearth tax, a kind of tax usually to be found among the fiscal traditions of communities in remote times, ranges among those of the Anglo-Saxon period. Such a tax is mentioned subsequently in Domesday Book.
1888, Stephen Dowell, A History of Taxation and Taxes in England from the Earliest Times to the Year 1885, Volume 1, Longmans, Green and Co, page 10 - uncountableartA surrealist art technique, devised by Wolfgang Paalen, in which impressions are made by the smoke of a candle or kerosene lamp on a piece of paper or canvas.
1951, Ithell Colquhoun, "Children of the Mantic Stain". Athene 5:2. Another painter who worked with the surrealist movement, Wolfgang Paalen, invented the automatism of fumage (named from the French fumée).
1 more example
2013, Whitney Sherman, Playing with Sketches, The Quarto Group (Rockport Publishers), page 32, Fumage is not a frequently used drawing technique, but when used it can produce a subtle and mysterious effect. One notable twentieth-century fumage artist was banker Hugh Parker Guiler, spouse of diarist Anaïs Nin.
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Latinfumus“smoke”
- Old Frenchfumage
- Englishfumage
From Old French fumage, fumaige, from Latin fumus (“smoke”).
More words from Old French, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French fumage
- fumageart technique
German Fumage
- Fumageart technique
Latin fumagium
- fumagiumhearth tax
Cite this entry
fumage. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fumage
“fumage.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fumage. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “fumage,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fumage.
Source: fumage on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.