abubble en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- /əˈbʌb.l̩/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /əˈbʌb.l̩/ (US)
Etymology
From a- (“in such a state or condition”) + bubble.
Meanings
-
(not-comparable) In a state of excitement, agitated activity, or motion.
After they had sat down, the party remained abubble until the speaker rose.
When we left the restaurant he was all abubble and said over and over again that he’d had the best time that evening he had ever had in the Army.
1944, Ernie Pyle, chapter 30, in Brave Men,, New York: Henry Holt, page 409:Dr. Walter Dürrfeld […] a director of IG Farbenindustrie, that […] conglomerate—inconceivably huge even for its day—whose prestige and size are alone enough to set Professor Biegański’s mind abubble with giddy euphoria.
1979, William Styron, chapter 13, in Sophie’s Choice, New York: Random House, page 381:1885, Alexander Stewart, ’Twixt Ben Nevis and Glencoe, Edinburgh: William Paterson, Chapter 46, p. 337, It was at times as if a score of tiny rainbows of the most brilliant hues were being rapidly interwoven, only to be instantly untwisted again, in order to be rewoven into a newer and still brighter pattern, in and over an acre of sea, all abubble and aboil with the gambols of the frolicsome shoal.
The men in stripes worked a shorter day than I at my machine. And there was vastly more romance in being an oyster pirate or a convict than in being a machine slave. And behind it all, behind all of me with youth a-bubble, whispered Romance, Adventure.
1913, Jack London, chapter 7, in John Barleycorn, New York: Century, page 64:
-
(not-comparable) Bubbling.
The sour mash was abubble.
Part haste the boiling caldron all a-bubble,
1869, William Alexander, “Specimen of a Translation of Virgil”, in Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, Dublin: William McGee, page 345:
Synonyms
ebullient · bubblesome (bubbling) · bubbly