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''ebullition'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260723122144-00-⌔

ebullition - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

ebullition (countable and uncountable, plural ebullitions)

  • The act of boiling.
    • ✤ Synonym: ebullience
    • ✤ It overflows at one point and forms a little stream of hot water, which at a hundred yards’ distance is still too hot to hold the hand in. A little further on, in a piece of rough wood, were two other springs not so regular in outline, but appearing to be much hotter, as they were in a continual state of active ebullition.1
    • ✤ Suddenly, and at the same moment, the ebullition ceased, and the compound changed to a dark purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery green.2
  • A sudden emotional outburst.
    • ✤ Synonym: ebullience
    • ✤ His threats—his severe exclamations were but ebullitions of keen vexation, of agony of mind.3
    • ✤ Having vented the first ebullition of his wrath, he despatched a message demanding the surrender of the corporal […].4
    • ✤ I don’t think poor Amelia cared anything about Brienne and Montmirail, or was fairly interested in the war until the abdication of the Emperor; when she clapped her hands and said prayers—oh, how grateful! and flung herself into George Osborne’s arms with all her soul, to the astonishment of everybody who witnessed that ebullition of sentiment.5
    • ✤ …it is apparent to me that these little ebullitions, or whatever they may be called, of the black guillemots are of a blended nature…6
    • ✤ This villa was long and low and white, and severe after its manner: for upon and about it were none of those playful ebullitions of taste, such as conical towers, domed roofs, embattlements, statues, coloured tiles and crenellations, such as are dear to architects of villas all the world over.7
    • ✤ To foreigners we often seem guileless and overchatty, an impression which is dispersed when they find that much of our friendliness is just the ebullition of the moment and does not carry with it any permanence of devotion.8

Etymology

From Old French ebullition, from Latin ēbullītiō, from ēbulliō (“to boil”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˌiːbəˈlɪʃən/, /ˌɛbəˈlɪʃən/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-07-23.

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Footnotes

  1. 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 406: ↩

  2. 1886, Robert Louis Stephenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: ↩

  3. 1807, [Miss Guion], chapter VII, in The Three Germans. Mysteries Exemplified in the Life of Holstein of Lutztein. A German Romance. […], volume III, London: […] J[ames] F[letcher] Hughes, […], →OCLC, page 102: ↩

  4. 1832, Washington Irving, Tales from the Alhambra: ↩

  5. 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 12, in Vanity Fair: ↩

  6. 1905, Selous, Edmund, chapter X, in The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands ‎, page 71: ↩

  7. 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/6/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days ‎: ↩

  8. 1923 February 11, Mme. X. [pseudonym], “News of Chicago Society: Now That War’s Over, On with Full Dress, Men”, in The Chicago Sunday Tribune, final edition, volume LXXXII, number 6, Chicago, Ill., →ISSN, →OCLC, part 7, page 5, columns 6–7: ↩