Vapourise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To change a liquid or solid into a gas or mist through heating ; to annihilate something completely by reducing it to vapour with intense force
2. To convert a substance into a fine spray or steam by applying heat ; to obliterate a target so thoroughly that only mist or gas remains
3. To transform matter into vapour through the action of heat ; to wipe out something entirely by turning it into vapour in an explosion or blast

Etymology: Vapourise is the British spelling of "vaporise", and the word is simply the Latin noun "vapor" (steam, vapour, breath) with the verb-forming suffix "-ise". That suffix has a long trip behind it: it began as a Greek ending, "-izein", which Latin borrowed as "-izare" and which then passed through Old French as "-iser" before reaching Middle English as "-isen". English thus built a verb meaning "to turn into vapour" by bolting a Greek-derived ending onto a Latin noun. The noun itself is ancient. It goes back to a Proto-Italic root, and the Old French "vapeur" carried it into English as "vapour" in Middle English, where it kept the sense of a visible mist or steam rising from water or a warm body. The verb "vaporise" is a much later creation, so the word's core meaning, the gas or steam, was in place long before anyone needed a verb for the process.

Synonyms: vaporise, vaporize, evaporate

Antonyms: condense, liquefy