What it means
A fog so thick it’s like someone poured grey soup into the air and you can barely see your own hand. Pea-souper started as London talk for the filthy coal-smoke smogs of the 1800s and early 1900s. These days it’s used across the UK for any outrageously dense mist that makes driving feel like a dare. Proper grim, but it’s a cracking word.
Usage examples
"Stepped out the gaff and nearly walked into a bin, it’s a right pea-souper. Sat nav’s lost it, so I’m inching to the station."
"It was a proper pea-souper this morning, I couldn't see the end of the street."
"Drive carefully, there's a pea-souper rolling in off the moor."
"Absolute pea-souper out there tonight, mate. Bus went past me and I only clocked it once the doors were shutting."
"Woke up to a proper pea-souper round the village, had to creep the car along like my nan was doing the driving."
Where it comes from
It came out of Victorian London, where coal smoke and fog used to mash together into a filthy yellow-grey smog. People called it pea-souper because it looked like split pea soup hanging in the air. The phrase stuck, and now it gets used for any fog so thick it swallows the street whole.
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