0 present participle of smoulder
2 If a problem or unpleasant situation smoulders, it continues to exist and may become worse at any time:
The dispute is still smouldering, five years after the negotiations began.
3 If a strong emotion smoulders, it exists, but is prevented from being expressed:
4 A person who smoulders has strong sexual or romantic feelings but does not express them:
They did not have brass pots, so they used mostly unglazed pottery which cannot stand 'any fire fiercer than the smouldering one given by dung'.
The smouldering controversy was recently inflamed again by revisionist historians.
The production suggests smouldering rather than explosive affect.
It is now generally accepted that they represent early stages of acute myeloid leukaemia, a fact reflected in the commonly used terms 'preleukaemia' or 'smouldering leukaemia'.
Whatever the cause, the burning resentment of the father was deep and lasting, since up to eight years later it was still smouldering in the pages of his will.
I understand that when the heap was last visited it was found that the flames had been quenched and only a slight smouldering was visible.
This order raises the apparently dormant but hotly smouldering question of the disposal of such land.
The source of a flame must be a smouldering cigarette or an electrical short circuit.