haze

haze n Haze, mist, fog, smog denote an atmospheric condition which deprives the air near the earth of its transparency.

Haze applies to such a condition as is caused by the diffusion of smoke, dust, or a light vapor through the air in such a way as to impede but not obstruct the vision and to convey little or no impression of dampness

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the early morning haze on a warm day in autumn

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there is haze today because the wind carries the smoke from the railroad yards

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Mist applies to a condition where water is held in suspension in fine particles in the air, floating or slowly falling in minute drops. A fog differs from a mist only in its greater density and its greater power to cut off the vision and differs from a cloud in being near to the ground

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not the thin glassy mist of twenty minutes ago, but a thick, dense, blinding fog that hemmed in like walls of wadding on every side— Hugh Walpole

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Smog applies to a fog made heavier and darker by the smoke of an industrial area

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a Los Angeles smog

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In extended use haze suggests vagueness or lack of clear definition of thought or feeling

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looking back through the haze of years— Allen Johnson

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Mist applies to what can be only dimly apprehended because of its remoteness

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its origins are lost in the mists of antiquity— Coultori

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or to something which prevents exact knowledge or clear understanding

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times . . . half shrouded in the mist of legend— Freeman

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Fog implies an obscuring of the mental or spiritual vision or of whatever can be detected only by such vision

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the fog of ignorance in which so many live

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life and its few years—a wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun— Reese

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the subject is wrapped in fogs of vague thinking— Overstreet

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