Background:
Individuals’ thoughts concerning cigarette are formed through their informal observations and personal experiences in the past. Research demonstrates that young people today start smoking before they are 13 years old and that culture is important in doing this.

Material and methods:
This research employs phenomenology, one of the qualitative research designs, in accordance with research purposes. The study group was composed of 986 students chosen in purposeful sampling method.

Results:
886 metaphors in total, 110 of which were different were obtained in the research. Metaphors obtained were classified into three categories and were put to analysis.

Conclusions:
This research was conducted so as to exhibit students’ mental images of cigarette. In consequence, it was found that the participants had positive metaphors such as enjoyment, friend, need which relaxes, clearing one’s head, sharing feelings, and intoxicating as well as negative metaphors such as poison, addiction and death. It became clear through metaphors reported at university level that the harm caused by cigarette is more clearly understood at university level than at other school levels.