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).

Concepts

bubble

foam

froth

boil

blister

effervesce

seethe

bladder

gurgle

sparkle

lather

fizz

burble

belch

burp

eruct

babble

guggle

vesicle

bubble up

boil up

rumble

spume

sputter

well up

churn

suds

simmer

billow

bleb

ripple

house of cards

brim over

air bubble

bubbling

form bubbles

cystis urinaria

urocyst

urocystis

vesica

vesica urinaria

drone

hum

murmur

purr

stammer

whirr

cream

head on beer

air ball

fizzle

soapsuds

fantasy

whim

whimsy

begin to boil

befool

cheat

bubble company

overflow

bathrobe

air hole

air-pocket

envelope

gas bag

gas cell

pneumathode

pneumatic bag

tracheal sac

air sac

abscess

alveolar

gas cavity

alveolus

bath

immerse

soak

steep

domain tip

magnetic bubble

splash

be agitated

spring up

snort

bubble of air

agitate

ferment

bulb

chimney

craw

crop

crown

dome

gizzard

sound bow

glug

noise

gush

well

frizzle

fume

mouthful

taste

excite

fancy

illusion

phantasm

phantasy

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈbʌb.əl/

Etymology

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.