bubble

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A thin, usually spherical or hemispherical film of liquid filled with air or gas: a soap bubble.
2. n. A globular body of air or gas formed within a liquid: air bubbles rising to the surface.
3. n. A pocket formed in a solid by air or gas that is trapped, as during cooling or hardening.
4. n. The act or process of forming bubbles.
5. n. A sound made by or as if by the forming and bursting of bubbles.
6. n. Something insubstantial, groundless, or ephemeral, especially:
7. n. A fantastic or impracticable idea or belief; an illusion: didn't want to burst the new volunteers' bubble.
8. n. A speculative scheme that comes to nothing: lost money in the real estate bubble.
9. n. Something light or effervescent: "Macon—though terribly distressed—had to fight down a bubble of laughter” ( Anne Tyler).
10. n. A usually transparent glass or plastic dome.
11. n. A protective, often isolating envelope or cover: "The Secret Service will talk of tightening protection, but no President wants to live in a bubble” ( Anthony Lewis).
12. v. To form or give off bubbles.
13. v. To move or flow with a gurgling sound: a brook bubbling along its course.
14. v. To rise to or as if to the surface; emerge: "Since then, the revolution has bubbled up again in many forms” ( Jonathan Schell).
15. v. To display irrepressible activity or emotion: bubbling over with excitement.
16. v. To cause to form bubbles.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A small vesicle of water or other fluid inflated with air or other gas, and floating on the surface of the fluid. Such vesicles can sometimes, as in the case of the soap-bubble, be separated from the surface of the liquid, or be formed independently of it, by blowing from a pipe or other instrument.
2. n. A small globule of air or other gas in or rising through a liquid.
3. n. The vesicle of air in the glass spirit-tube of a mechanics' level.
4. n. One of the small hollow beads of glass formerly used for testing the strength of spirits by the rate at which they rise after being plunged in them. See bead, 7.
5. n. Anything that wants firmness, substance, or permanence; that which is more specious than real; a vain project; a false show; a delusion; a trifle.
6. n. An inflated speculation; a delusive commercial project, especially one which is put forward as insuring extraordinary profits; hence, a financial imposition or fraud; a cheating trick: as, the South Sea bubble. See below.
7. n. . A person deceived by an empty project; a dupe.
8. n. In New England, hash or minced meat.
9. To rise in bubbles, as liquors when boiling or agitated; send up bubbles.
10. To run with a gurgling noise; gurgle: as, “bubbling fountains,”
11. To utter a bubbling or gurgling cry.
12. To cause to bubble.
13. To cheat; deceive or impose on; hoodwink; bamboozle.
14. To shed tears in a sniveling, blubbering, childish way.
15. n. Snot.

Wiktionary

1. n. A spherically contained volume of air, especially one made from soapy liquid.
2. n. A small spherical cavity in a solid material.
3. n. Anything resembling a hollow sphere.
4. n. economics 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.
5. n. obsolete Someone who has been ‘bubbled’ or fooled; a dupe.
6. n. figuratively a feverish upwelling
7. n. figuratively a feverish surge of speculation in a financial market, usually followed by a market crash (eg the South Sea Bubble).
8. n. Cockney rhyming slang a Greek (also: bubble and squeak)
9. n. figuratively emotional or\and physical atmosphere in which the subject is immersed; circumstances, ambience
10. v. intransitive To produce bubbles, to rise up in bubbles (such in foods cooking).
11. v. transitive, archaic To cheat, delude.
12. v. intransitive, Scotland and Northern England To cry, weep.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A thin film of liquid inflated with air or gas.
2. n. A small quantity of air or gas within a liquid body.
3. n. A globule of air, or globular vacuum, in a transparent solid.
4. n. A small, hollow, floating bead or globe, formerly used for testing the strength of spirits.
5. n. The globule of air in the spirit tube of a level.
6. n. Anything that wants firmness or solidity; that which is more specious than real; a false show; a cheat or fraud; a delusive scheme; an empty project; a dishonest speculation.
7. n. obsolete A person deceived by an empty project; a gull.
8. v. To rise in bubbles, as liquids when boiling or agitated; to contain bubbles.
9. v. To run with a gurgling noise, as if forming bubbles.
10. v. To sing with a gurgling or warbling sound.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. rise in bubbles or as if in bubbles
2. v. flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise
3. v. form, produce, or emit bubbles
4. n. a speculative scheme that depends on unstable factors that the planner cannot control
5. v. cause to form bubbles
6. n. an impracticable and illusory idea
7. n. a dome-shaped covering made of transparent glass or plastic
8. n. a hollow globule of gas (e.g., air or carbon dioxide)
9. v. expel gas from the stomach