bubble over

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

bubble over (third-person singular simple present bubbles over, present participle bubbling over, simple past and past participle bubbled over)

1. (idiomatic) To be very enthusiastic, or highly excited.

   She was bubbling over with laughter as she ran into the room.

   • 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC, page 9:

     They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups. The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits.

Usage notes

• The verb and the particle are not normally separable.
• Often followed by with.

Anagrams

• overbubble