bubble

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an impracticable and illusory idea

   They didn't want to burst the newcomer's bubble.

2. 2
   verb

   to expel gas from the stomach

   They were bubbling all night.

3. 3
   verb

   to form, produce, or emit bubbles

   The machine should be bubbling.

4. 4
   verb

   to cause to form bubbles

   I bubble gas through a liquid.

5. 5
   verb

   to rise in bubbles or as if in bubbles

   The diver bubbled to the surface.

6. 6
   verb

   to flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise

   The creek bubbled through our back yard.

7. 7
   noun

   A small spherical cavity in a solid material.

   bubbles in window glass, or in a lens

8. 8
   noun

   Anything lacking firmness or solidity; a cheat or fraud; an empty project.

   Then a soldier […] / Seeking the bubble reputation / Even in the cannon's mouth

Etymology

Partly imitative, also influenced by burble. Compare Middle Dutch bobbe (“bubble”) > Dutch bubbel (“bubble”), Low German bubbel (“bubble”), Danish boble (“bubble”), Swedish bubbla (“bubble”). The word was first used in its economic sense in association with the collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720, based on the metaphor of an inflated soap bubble bursting.