Definition of chain-smoke in US English:

verb

• Smoke continually, especially by lighting a new cigarette from the butt of the last one smoked.

  ‘he chain-smoked and drank too much’

  with object ‘he chain-smoked menthol cigarettes’

  ‘morose, chain-smoking soldiers’

  More example sentences

  • ‘I'm not in the market for any old artsy, chain-smoking, wonderful kisser, prince.’
  • ‘Also there was the fact that practically everyone in the bar was chain-smoking, and there was limited ventilation in the room.’
  • ‘I led Laura to The Mermaid, where she trailed behind me, chain-smoking.’
  • ‘It now seems almost certain that the once fun-loving, chain-smoking, hard-drinking Royal socialite will bow out of public life.’
  • ‘He took us to a café by the sea where we drank Malibu while he chain-smoked and chatted about his life in Kotor and the tensions he experienced because of his Albanian nationality.’
  • ‘We went during Paris fashion week and the place was full of martini drinking skinny models, chain-smoking and sipping Martinis.’
  • ‘She spends what seem like hours bathing, listening to Billie Holiday records, chain-smoking, and smiling to herself.’
  • ‘Undernourished and chain-smoking, he looks 16.’
  • ‘The cigarette consumption is voracious - he chain-smokes throughout our interview and has previously smoked his way around the golf course.’
  • ‘You chain-smoked cigarettes, throughout the night.’
  • ‘Once poker was a game played by chain-smoking, visor-wearing social oddities with rolls of cash and an obsession for cards which bordered on addiction.’
  • ‘An archetypal loner who chain-smokes, drives when drunk and rarely has a fresh pint of milk in the fridge, he is dysfunction personified.’
  • ‘I spent my working hours chain-smoking cigarettes and looking through the packs of developed photographs before the customers returned for them.’
  • ‘Most of the women were chain-smoking, and everyone was drinking.’
  • ‘Marge's chain-smoking, DMV-working sister, Selma, feels the tick of her biological clock.’
  • ‘Tom would be teasing Katie, and Dad chain-smoking and making jokes, while Mom piled the table with enough food to feed the Zuckermans twice over.’
  • ‘It's a bit of an odd casting choice considering that in the comics he's a ragged, chain-smoking, working class Brit with blonde hair.’
  • ‘Upstairs, reporters jammed into a tiny antechamber, the shaggy cameramen and newspaper photographers chain-smoking and the lady reporters chattering nervously.’
  • ‘High-roller gamblers from Asia tend to chain-smoke, which has traditionally gone hand-in-hand with drinking and gambling.’
  • ‘The host was politically incorrect, chain-smoking, and fiercely monarchist.’