spume

English

Etymology

From Middle English spume, from Old French espume, from Latin spūma.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spjuːm/

• Audio (Canada):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːm

Noun

spume (countable and uncountable, plural spumes)

1. Foam or froth of liquid, particularly that of seawater.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Materials dark and crude, / Of spiritous and fiery spume.

   • 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XIX:

     No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; / This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath / For the fiend's glowing hoof - to see the wrath / Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

   • 1892, James Yoxall, chapter 5, in The Lonely Pyramid:

     The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. […] Roaring, leaping, pouncing, the tempest raged about the wanderers, drowning and blotting out their forms with sandy spume.

   • 1906 May–October, Jack London, chapter I, in White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 1 (The Wild):

     Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost.

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 337, about St Abbs:

     The village itself is built on a ridge above the harbour, rows of sturdy cottages over which spume is hurled by easterly gales.

   • 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:

     A strong sea wind lashed at his city suit, salt rain stung his eyes, balls of spume skimmed across his path.

Derived terms

• spumous
• spumy

Translations

foam of sea water

Bulgarian: пяна (bg) f (pjana) Dutch: zeeschuim (nl) n Greek: αλισάχνη (el) f (alisáchni) Maori: ware (mi), pūpūtai, pūtai Middle English: spume Russian: пе́на (ru) f (péna) Scottish Gaelic: cathadh-mara m Welsh: distrych, berw (cy)

Verb

spume (third-person singular simple present spumes, present participle spuming, simple past and past participle spumed)

1. To froth.

Anagrams

• pumse

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈspu.me/
• Rhymes: -ume
• Hyphenation: spù‧me

Noun

spume f

1. plural of spuma

Middle English

Alternative forms

• spome (Northern)

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French espume, from Latin spūma.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈspiu̯m(ə)/

Noun

spume (uncountable)

1. spume, foam

Related terms

• spumen
• spumous

Descendants

• English: spume

References

• “spūme, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.