Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
WordNet
n. a tube that holds a cigarette while it is being smoked
Wikipedia
A cigarette holder is a slender tube in which a cigarette is held for smoking. Most frequently made of silver, jade or bakelite (popular in the past but now wholly replaced by modern plastics), cigarette holders were considered an essential part of ladies' fashion from the mid-1910s through the early-1970s.
Cigarette holders range from the simplest single material constructs to incredibly ornate styles with complex inlays of metal and gemstones. Rarer examples of these can be found in enamel, horn, tortoiseshell, or more precious materials such as amber and ivory.
As with evening gloves, ladies' cigarette holders are measured by four traditional formal standard lengths:
- opera length, usually 16 to 20 inches/40 to 50 cm
- theatre length, 10 to 14 inches/25 to 35 cm
- dinner length, 4 to 6 inches/10 to 15 cm
- cocktail length, which includes shorter holders
Traditionally, men's cigarette holders were no more than 4 inches long.
The holder was also used as a practical accessory, as before the advent of filtered cigarettes in the 1960s, the holder served several purposes. A holder kept tobacco flakes out of the smoker's mouth, kept the thin cigarette paper from sticking and tearing on the smoker's lips, prevented nicotine stains on fingers, cooled and mellowed the smoke and kept side-stream smoke from stinging the smoker's eyes. Occasionally the holder would be built to encase a filter for taste and later, health reasons. Though modern cigarettes are generally manufactured with an existing filter, filtered cigarette holders are occasionally used as a secondary filtration system, and to prevent nicotine staining of the fingers.
A similar holder made of wood, meerschaum or bakelite and with an amber mouthpiece was used for cigars and was a popular accessory for men from the Edwardian period until the 1920s.
Usage examples of "cigarette holder".
He took out the ivory cigarette holder which had been pushing up through the buttoned flap of the pocket on his khaki shirt, put it in his mouth and blew whistlingly through it.
Then the man at the window pushed himself leisurely off the wall and was sauntering easily across the room, cigarette holder in one hand, a pair of heavy leather gloves swinging in the other and suddenly, there could be doubt no more.
Colonel Cathcart took the cigarette holder out of his mouth, stood it on end inside the pocket of his shirt, and began gnawing on the fingernails of both hands grievously.
His brown throat was bare and he had on red slippers with gold dragons on the toes and between the first and second fingers of his right hand tilted an ebony cigarette holder with an oval butt lisping smoke out the end.
The long cigarette holder dropped very slowly to her side and the cigarette fell out of it.
Here Teddy's distant cousin had saved his country from internal chaos and despair, with little more than a nasal voice and an up-angled cigarette holder.
Dismas was hunched at a rickety table, reading a book and smoking a clove-scented cigarette stuck in his bone cigarette holder.
She dropped her cigarette holder to the floor and used both hands to push aside his long coat to get at the shirt beneath.