Steam

How to spell steam

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce steam

What does steam mean?

1. nounThe hot vapour produced when water boils, or the mist this forms in cooler air.
2. verbTo cook food using hot vapour, or to give off vapour.

Steam in a sentence

• noun

  Steam rose from the kettle as the water reached the boil.

• verb

  She likes to steam the vegetables to keep their colour and nutrients.

• noun

  The bathroom mirror was clouded with steam after his shower.

• verb

  The hot soup began to steam as soon as it was poured into the bowl.

Where does steam come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending directly from the Old English steam, which meant a vapour, a smell, or an exhalation rising from something hot. It belongs to a wider Germanic family, with close relatives such as the Dutch stoom and the Low German stom, all carrying the sense of rising warm vapour. For most of its early history the word simply described the visible mist given off by anything warm or moist, including breath and cooking fumes. Its modern technological weight arrived with the industrial age, when steam-driven engines transformed travel and manufacturing, attaching the word firmly to power and machinery. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable, with the 'ea' digraph reliably giving the long 'ee' sound, which keeps it an easy word to write.

How the word is built

• steam (from Old English steam: vapour, exhalation); single Germanic root, no affixes