pea-souper

See also: peasouper and pea souper

English
WOTD – 23 March 2021

Etymology

From pea soup +‎ -er (suffix meaning ‘person or thing connected with’);[1]

  • (dense, yellowish fog”): from the appearance of the fog
  • (French-Canadian person): may be from the prevalence of pea soup in French cuisine: compare pea soup (“(slang, derogatory) French person”).

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈpiːˌsuːpə/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈpiˌsupɚ/
  • Audio (AU)(file)
  • Hyphenation: pea-soup‧er

Noun

pea-souper (plural pea-soupers)

  1. (British, Canada, informal) A dense, yellowish fog, often mixed with smoke; a pea-soup fog, a smog.
    A man bumped into a lamp post during a pea-souper; he immediately apologised to it, not realising what it was.
    I can hear the bell on the buoy, but I can’t see anything in this pea-souper.
    • 2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 35, in Small Island‎, London: Review, page 346:
      The dust surrounded us like a London pea-souper.
  2. (Canada, slang, derogatory) A French-Canadian person, especially a Francophone from the province of Québec.
    Those pea-soupers are the worst drivers on the road!

Alternative forms

Synonyms
fog
  • pea soup fog
  • pea-soup fog
  • peasoup fog

Hypernyms
fog

Coordinate terms
fog

Translations

References
  1. “pea-souper, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2005; “pea-souper, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading
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