Smoking or emitting smoke; in a state of smoke or producing smoke.
From 'a-' plus 'smoke,' where 'smoke' comes from Old English 'smoca,' possibly from Germanic roots meaning vapor or steam. The prefix creates an adjectival form meaning 'in the state of smoking.'
Medieval descriptions loved piling on visual states with 'a-' words—a castle could be 'afire,' 'asmoke,' and 'ashake' all at once, giving us this vivid, almost verb-like way of stacking descriptive images.
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