Wiktionary
n. A smoking trick where one blows or exhales rings of smoke.
Wikipedia
A smoke ring is a visible vortex ring formed by smoke in a clear atmosphere.
Smokers may blow smoke rings from the mouth, intentionally or accidentally. Smoke rings may also be formed by sudden bursts of fire (such as lighting and immediately putting out a cigarette lighter), by shaking a smoke source (such as an incense stick) up and down, by firing certain types of artillery, or by the use of special devices, such as vortex ring toys. The head of a mushroom cloud is a large smoke ring.
A smoke ring is commonly formed when a puff of smoke is suddenly injected into clear air, especially through a narrow opening. The outer parts of the puff are slowed down by the still air (or by edges of the opening) relative to the central part, imparting it the characteristic poloidal flow pattern.
The smoke makes the ring visible, but does not significantly affect the flow. The same phenomenon occurs with any fluid, creating vortex rings which are invisible but otherwise entirely similar to smoke rings.
When blown in still air, a smoke ring usually travels roughly straight from the opening over a surprisingly large distance, maintaining its round, o-ring shape, until dispersed by turbulence or other interference.
Smoke ring or smoke rings may refer to:
- A smoke ring proper, a vortex ring made of smoke
- A pink ring that forms around the edges of meat prepared by smoking, caused by myoglobin in the meat reacting with nitric oxide to form the heat stable pigment nitrosohemochrome, as nitrite salts do in cured meats.
- The Smoke Ring (band), a 1960s rock group
- The Smoke Ring (novel), by Larry Niven (1987)
- Smoke rings, a song on Drag (k.d. lang album) (1997)
- Leif Anderson, a Swedish radio presenter known as "Smoke Rings"
Usage examples of "smoke ring".
Now, the Clump is more crowded than the Smoke Ring in general, but one may still think of it as mostly empty space.
And there were several planets, orbiting the neutron star, inside the smoke ring.
Katalin gave him an elfin smile and blew a Lilliputian smoke ring.
He incinerates half of that cigarette with one long breath, holds it, blows out a smoke ring.
The Smoke Ring was a line of white emerging from the pale blue sky, narrowing as it curved around in the west.
I gave the allergy to Gavving in THE INTEGRAL TREES and Rather in THE SMOKE RING, for story purposes, and I had to nerve myself up to it.