Bubbles

How to spell bubbles

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bubbles

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bubbles mean?

1. nounThin spheres of liquid filled with air or gas, often rising through or floating on a fluid.
2. verbForms or rises in spheres of gas, or shows lively, cheerful energy.

Bubbles in a sentence

• noun

  The children chased soap bubbles across the garden.

• verb

  The soup bubbles gently on the back of the stove.

• noun

  Tiny bubbles rose to the surface of the sparkling water.

• verb

  She always bubbles with enthusiasm at team meetings.

Where does bubbles come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

The word bubble appears to be imitative in origin, echoing the soft popping or blubbering sound that escaping air makes in liquid. It surfaced in Middle English around the 1300s, and many scholars connect it to the Middle Dutch bobbel and the Low German bubbel, words of the same imitative family that named the rounded pockets of air rising in water. The plural and verb form bubbles simply adds the ordinary -s ending. Over time the sense broadened from the literal sphere of gas in liquid to figurative uses, such as a speculative financial bubble that swells and then bursts, and the cheerful idea of someone bubbling with enthusiasm. Because the word is built on a doubled b in the middle, its spelling is straightforward and rarely trips up adult writers.

How the word is built

• bubble (imitative root for a small ball of trapped air)
• -s (plural noun / third-person singular verb ending)