Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of fumado
Coloured illustration of fumado
#1801 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

smoking (the ongoing act or the habit)

Word origin

Built inside Esperanto from fumi ('to smoke') and the suffix -ad-, which turns a verb into the name of its ongoing action. Fumi itself is Latin fumare, from fumus, 'smoke'.

Origin
Esperanto derivation from Latin
Root
fumi + -ad-
English cognates
fume, fumigate, perfume

Examples

, .

The doctor said that smoking damages the body.

.

After twenty years of smoking he finally stopped.

.

Smoking is not permitted in that restaurant.

This is a genuine build, and one of the clearest examples of what -ad- is for. Fumi is the verb. Fumo would be the smoke itself, the grey stuff coming off the fire. is neither: it is the activity, the going-on-ness of the verb, and that is exactly the job the aspect suffix does. is to sing, o is singing as a sustained activity; is to smoke, is smoking.

The gloss in most word lists says "smoking (habit)", and that undersells it. -Ad- marks duration or repetition, so covers the habit a person has and also the plain ongoing act happening right now. is about the smoke being made this evening, not about anybody's twenty-a-day. Both readings are the same word doing the same thing.

Two practical notes. The sign on the wall is usually a or , and the first is a noun precisely because a prohibition applies to the activity rather than to any one puff. And the -ad- noun always keeps the verb's argument structure, so you can say in exactly the way English says "the smoking of cigarettes".

Where this fits

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Esperanto · Free printables

fumado: worksheet, infographic and listicle

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This word is part of lesson 37.