Simmer

How to spell simmer

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce simmer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does simmer mean?

1. verbTo cook or keep food in liquid that is kept just below boiling point, with only small bubbles.
2. verbTo remain in a state of barely controlled anger or tension that has not yet erupted.

Simmer in a sentence

• Let the sauce simmer for twenty minutes before serving.

• Resentment can simmer for years between feuding neighbours.

• Reduce the heat so the soup can simmer rather than boil over.

• Tensions in the office continued to simmer after the layoffs.

Where does simmer come from?

Language of origin: Other

Simmer first appears in English in the 1500s as an alteration of an earlier verb 'simper', which meant to boil gently with a low, soft bubbling. The form is generally regarded as imitative, that is, the sound of the word echoes the faint, murmuring noise a pot makes when it is kept just below a full boil. Over time the 'p' softened into the 'm' we now use, giving the cosier-sounding 'simmer'. By the 1600s it had settled into its modern culinary sense, and from there it grew a vivid figurative use for emotions or situations that stay quietly active under the surface without quite boiling over. The doubled 'm' is the small spelling trap worth remembering: like 'summer' and 'dinner', the consonant doubles to protect the short vowel before the '-er'.

How the word is built

• simmer (a base verb of imitative origin; no separable prefix or suffix, but note the doubled -mm- that keeps the short 'i' sound)