boiling

Pluralboilings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of boil.

   Steam rose from the cauldron that had been boiling over the fire all morning.

   Boiling the pasta a minute too long left it soft and sticky.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. With be it builds the progressive (the water is boiling), and on its own it heads a noun phrase (boiling the pasta too long). The verb runs both ways, transitive and intransitive. Informal British usage lets the container stand for its contents, so boiling the kettle means heating the water inside. In I'm boiling, the progressive verb overlaps with the "feeling too hot" adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Heated to the point of bubbling and turning into vapor.

   He carefully dropped the eggs into a pan of boiling water.

   Steam billowed from the boiling kettle on the stove.

   Oppositefreezing, cold

3. 3
   adjectivecolloquial

   Of the weather: uncomfortably or extremely hot.

   It's absolutely boiling today, and there isn't a cloud in the sky.

   We trudged across the desert under a boiling afternoon sun.

   Similarscorching, sweltering, roasting, baking, blistering

   Oppositefreezing, cold

   Note

   Weather talk puts it after an empty it: it's boiling today, it's boiling out, where out means outdoors. Like the "feeling too hot" sense, it is cheerful exaggeration for casual speech rather than a description a forecaster would use.

4. 4
   adjectivecolloquial

   Of a person, feeling uncomfortably hot, as from heat or exertion.

   I'm absolutely boiling in this packed train car.

   She felt boiling by the time she reached the top of the hill.

   Similarbaking, steaming, cooking, frying

   Oppositefreezing, cold

   Note

   Hyperbole about one's own body, usually said as a complaint: I'm boiling, can't we open a window? It belongs to a family of kitchen words used the same way: steaming, cooking, baking, frying. All of them exaggerate discomfort rather than report a temperature. Save it for casual talk. In writing that needs to sound measured, "very hot" or "overheated" does the job.

5. 5
   adjectivecolloquial

   Of a thing, extremely hot or full of intense, restless activity.

   By midday the car's engine was boiling under the hood.

   The trading floor was boiling with frantic activity all morning.

   Similarscorching, searing, seething, buzzing, teeming

   Note

   Hyperbole stretched past temperature: what boils here is movement. Margery Allingham writes of a doorstep caught in "a boiling stream of passers-by" in The China Governess (1963), and Justin O. Schmidt of "a boiling mass of ants" pouring from a nest (2016). The image is a surface that never settles, so it suits crowds and swarms. For plain heat the word works just as well, as with a radiator someone wants turned down.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process of heating a substance until it changes from a liquid into a gas at its boiling point.

   The boiling of seawater leaves the dissolved salt behind.

   Rapid boiling can make the liquid bubble over the rim of the pot.

   Oppositefreezing

   Note

   A noun for the change of state itself, the counterpart of freezing at the other end of the liquid's range. It is usually uncountable (the boiling of seawater), but it can be counted when separate episodes matter, as in repeated boilings of a syrup. Keep it apart from the kitchen sense, where boiling liquid is only the tool for cooking or cleaning something else.

7. 7
   adverb

   To an extreme degree; extremely.

   When she found out her brother had read her diary, she was boiling mad and wouldn't speak to him all week.

   Don't grab that pan by the handle; it's still boiling hot from the oven.

   Similarextremely, very

   Note

   An intensifier with a narrow range: it attaches to adjectives tied to heat, as in boiling hot. Boiling mad fits because anger is pictured as heat rising inside, the same image as a temper that boils over. The adverb does not compare. It intensifies the adjective it sits in front of but cannot itself be graded.

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The cooking of food, or cleaning of an object, by placing it in boiling liquid, usually water.

   A ten-minute boiling softens the dried beans nicely.

   The boiling of surgical tools was once the main way to sterilize them.

9. 9
   nounfigurativelycountable

   A state of turmoil or agitation, like the churning of bubbling water.

   A boiling of rage swept through the crowd gathered outside the courthouse.

   His blunt letter set off a boiling of resentment among the staff.

   Similarsurge, outburst, upsurge, eruption

10. 10
    nounfigurativelyuncountable

    An animation style in which outlines constantly shift and waver, giving the image a shimmering, wobbling look.

    The short film's heavy boiling gave every character a restless, hand-drawn energy.

    Animators sometimes add boiling to keep a static shot from feeling lifeless.

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