boil

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   (of a liquid) To become hot enough to bubble and turn into vapour.

   Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius.

2. 2
   verb

   To cook food in very hot bubbling water.

   I boil the eggs for exactly six minutes.

3. 3
   verb

   To feel very angry.

   She boiled with rage when she heard the news.

4. 4
   noun

   The point at which a liquid begins to boil.

   Add the pasta when the water comes to the boil.

Multiword verbs with boil

• boil off Phrasal verb A2

  to escape from a heated liquid as vapor

• boil over Phrasal verb A2

  to rise and spill out of a container while boiling

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Boil in the sense ‘bubble through heat’ came into Middle English from Old French boillir, based on Latin bullire ‘to bubble’, itself derived from bulla ‘a bubble’. Boil meaning a bodily swelling is unrelated and comes from an Old English word.

From Middle English bile, büle (“boil, tumor”), from Old English bȳl, bȳle (“boil, swelling”), from Proto-Germanic *būlijō, *būlō (“boil”). Akin to Dutch buil (“boil, swelling”), German Beule (“boil, hump”), Icelandic beyla (“swelling, hump”). The expected form is bile; the rounding of the diphthong could be caused by the initial b- and/or by association with etymology 2.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary