Chain smoking is the practice of lighting a new cigarette for personal consumption immediately after one that is finished, sometimes using the finished cigarette to light the next one. The term is most often used more loosely to describe people who smoke relatively constantly, though not actually "chaining." However, no clear definition exists as to how many cigarettes per day a person has to smoke in order to be considered a chain smoker, as the term is rather associated with perceivable behaviour than being or offering an actual quantitative measure. Chain smoking is a term primarily applied to cigarette smoking, although it can be extended to cover cigar and pipe smoking as well. It is a common form of addiction.
Read more about Chain Smoking: Causes, Clinical Use, Ventilation, In Culture
Famous quotes containing the words chain and/or smoking:
“The years seemed to stretch before her like the land: spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives; always the same yearning; the same pulling at the chain—until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously be released.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)