Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Foam or froth on a liquid, as on the sea.
- v. To froth or foam.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Froth; foam; scum; frothy matter raised on liquors or fluid substances by boiling, effervescence, or agitation.
- To froth; foam.
- Same as spoom.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Frothy matter raised on liquids by boiling, effervescence, or agitation; froth; foam; scum.
- v. To froth; to foam.
WordNet 3.0
- n. foam or froth on the sea
- v. make froth or foam and become bubbly
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French espume, from Latin spūma.
Examples
“On January 6th, 2010 at 7: 29 pm, New Chapters « spume wrote:”
Imperfect storage, blogging, new critics, Johnny Apple – sipped and spit | Dr Vino's wine blog
“Never mind that most of his rapping was a spume of spittle and expletives – you expect that at a hip-hop show.”
The Guardian: The worst gig we ever played: musicians on their on-stage lows
“At Dulwich is a painting, Hero and Leandro for Christopher Marlowe, that is a white misty spume of oceanic spray assailed by a bloody smear of red.”
The Guardian: Cy Twombly - an appreciation: Paintings about sex and death
“Half an hour later he shut down his account for good, stung by the spume of venom from both his own club's supporters "team do all hard work keeping possession then u hit row Z every fuckin time!!" and those of Northern Ireland, whose advances he turned down in favour of the Republic.”
The Guardian: How Twitter is bringing footballers back to the fans
“This spume drove masthead high, and higher, horizontally, above the surface of the sea.”
“The streams run dry on poisoned land, where stands the angel of the key, in hailfire strafing spume and sand as fish rot on a wormwood sea.”
“The rest of the time -- fog, spume and relentless, gray oppressive motherhumping rain.”
“The sea, too, breathed in and out, its breast swelling with each breath until I was half afraid that the Leviathan from the Bible would burst from its depths and shower me with spume.”
“And suddenly, out there where a big smoker lifts skyward, rising like a sea-god from out of the welter of spume and churning white, on the giddy, toppling, overhanging and downfalling, precarious crest appears the dark head of a man.”
“As it was, spray and spume came aboard in such quantities that I bailed without cessation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spume’.
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Kapok Vest and Other Floaty Words
List of words and things buoyant.
kapok vest, balsa wood, pumice, buoy, lifebuoy, dan, soap bubble, styrofoam, oil, foam, cloud, smoke ring and 43 more...
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Words in which "u" is pronounced "yu"
cute, uniform, puny, municipal, butte, fume, perfume, puke, cucumber, huge, demure, cube and 56 more...
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hilton head
bilby
How close does the dragon's spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?
- Ellen Bass, 'If You Knew'. Sep 7, 2009
madmouth "The sea of spuming thought foists up again
The radiant bubble that she was. And then
A deep up-pouring from some saltier well
Within me, bursts its watery syllable."
-from Wallace Stevens' Le Monocle de Mon Oncle Aug 3, 2009
reesetee Indeed. I know I have. Mar 22, 2008
bilby It's okay, you can do it. I think all of us here have moved house at one time because we found a neighbourhood with a better word in it. Mar 22, 2008
jamescridland I've always loved this word, although rarely have a chance to use it in conversation, living far away from the sea. This is a shame. Mar 22, 2008