The term vape is of course a contracted form of the word vapour, which has been knocking around in the English language since the late 14th century and has its origins in the Latin vaporem meaning ‘steam’ or ‘exhalation’. Raising the same sort of social issues as smoking, vape mirrors its path of word formation, so for instance we can have non-vapers as well as vapers, and talk about anti-vaping campaigns by those who oppose the habit.