spume en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /spjuːm/
- (Canada) audio
Etymology
From Middle English spume, from Old French espume, from Latin spūma.
Meanings
-
(countable, uncountable) Foam or froth of liquid, particularly that of seawater.
A strong sea wind lashed at his city suit, salt rain stung his eyes, balls of spume skimmed across his path.
1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:The village itself is built on a ridge above the harbour, rows of sturdy cottages over which spume is hurled by easterly gales.
1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 337, about St Abbs:Materials dark and crude, / Of spiritous and fiery spume.
1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost.
1906 May–October, Jack London, chapter I, in White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 1 (The Wild):The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.[…]Roaring, leaping, pouncing, the tempest raged about the wanderers, drowning and blotting out their forms with sandy spume.
1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid:No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; / This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath / For the fiend's glowing hoof - to see the wrath / Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.
1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XIX:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| spumes | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Deriveds
Translations (14)
nl zeeschuim (foam of sea water) · ota كوپوك (foam of sea water) · cy distrych (foam of sea water) · cy berw (foam of sea water) · mi ware (foam of sea water) · ru пе́на (foam of sea water) · el αλισάχνη (foam of sea water) · pl piana (foam of sea water) · gd cathadh-mara (foam of sea water) · mi pūtai (foam of sea water) · mi pūpūtai (foam of sea water) · enm spume (foam of sea water) · bg пяна (foam of sea water) · tr köpük (foam of sea water)