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: --
I would not want to do anything to stir up the smouldering embers of party venom which still exist.
It is not a sudden convulsion that we have gone into; it has been smouldering for a long time, and we must now face it.
All of these issues have been smouldering for years.
I was on the scene within a few hours and saw the burnt buildings still smouldering, the broken windows and the looted shops.
Then, when this happened, at once the fire which had been smouldering unseen for at least two years burst forth in a destructive flame.
By the end of this year the great majority of mattresses on sale in this country will be resistant to ignition by smouldering cigarettes.
I beg them not to ignite the powder keg that is smouldering in the countryside.
The source of a flame must be a smouldering cigarette or an electrical short circuit.
