bubble

Meaning

Noun

1. A spherically contained volume of air or other gas, especially one made from soapy liquid.
2. A small spherical cavity in a solid material.
3. Anything resembling a hollow sphere.
4. Anything lacking firmness or solidity; a cheat or fraud; an empty project.
5. A period of intense speculation in a market, causing prices to rise quickly to irrational levels as the metaphorical bubble expands, and then fall even more quickly as the bubble bursts.
6. The emotional or physical atmosphere in which a subject is immersed.
7. An officer's station in a prison dormitory, affording views on all sides.
8. (obsolete) Someone who has been ‘bubbled’ or fooled; a dupe.
9. A small, hollow, floating bead or globe, formerly used for testing the strength of spirits.
10. The globule of air in the chamber of a spirit level.
11. (slang) A laugh.
12. (slang) A Greek.
13. Any of the small magnetized areas that make up bubble memory.
14. In a poker tournament, the point before which eliminated players receive no prize money and after which they do; the situation where all remaining players are guaranteed prize money (in this case, the players are said to have made the bubble); the situation where all remaining players will be guaranteed prize money after some small number of players are eliminated (in this case, the players are said to be on the bubble).
15. The cutoff point between qualifying, advancing or being invited to a tournament, or having one's competition end.
16. A quarantine environment containing multiple people and/or facilities isolated from the rest of society.
17. The people who are in this quarantine.
18. Short for travel bubble.
19. (slang) A bulb or lamp; the part of a lighting assembly that actually produces the light.
20. A specialized glass pipe having a sphere-shaped apparatus at one end.

Verb

1. To produce bubbles, to rise up in bubbles (such as in foods cooking or liquids boiling).
2. To churn or foment, as if wishing to rise to the surface.
3. To rise through a medium or system, similar to the way that bubbles rise in liquid.
4. To cheat, delude.
5. To cry, weep.
6. To pat a baby on the back so as to cause it to belch.
7. To cause to feel as if bubbling or churning.
8. To express in a bubbly or lively manner.
9. To form into a protruding round shape.
10. To cover with bubbles.
11. To bubble in; to mark a response on a form by filling in a circular area (‘bubble’).
12. To apply a filter bubble, as to search results.
13. To join together in a support bubble
14. (slang) To grass (report criminal activity to the authorities).

Synonyms

foam

froth

boil

blister

seethe

effervesce

bladder

gurgle

sparkle

❇️

lather

eruct

burp

belch

bubble up

guggle

vesicle

burble

fizz

boil up

babble

churn

air bubble

billow

bleb

brim over

bubbling

house of cards

ripple

rumble

simmer

spume

sputter

suds

well up

form bubbles

cheat

excite

fancy

fantasy

ferment

bulb

💡

fizzle

befool

frizzle

bathrobe

fume

gizzard

glug

bath

🛀

alveolus

gush

head on beer

sound bow

hum

illusion

immerse

alveolar

magnetic bubble

mouthful

murmur

noise

overflow

phantasm

phantasy

purr

gas cell

bubble company

air sac

gas bag

snort

soak

soapsuds

air-pocket

splash

spring up

gas cavity

domain tip

stammer

steep

tracheal sac

taste

vesica

air hole

well

pneumatic bag

whim

whimsy

whirr

be agitated

begin to boil

agitate

cystis urinaria

bubble of air

urocyst

urocystis

vesica urinaria

pneumathode

air ball

abscess

craw

cream

crop

crown

👑

dome

drone

chimney

envelope

✉️

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈbʌb.əl/

Etymology

Cognate with Middle Dutch: bobbe

Cognate with Dutch: bubbel

Cognate with Low German: bubbel

Cognate with Danish: boble

Cognate with Swedish: bubbla

In summary

Partly imitative, also influenced by burble. Compare Middle Dutch bobbe (“bubble”) > Dutch bubbel (“bubble”), Low German bubbel (“bubble”), Danish boble (“bubble”), Swedish bubbla (“bubble”). The word was first used in its economic sense in association with the collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720, based on the metaphor of an inflated soap bubble bursting.