bubbles

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of bubble.

   Streams of bubbles drifted upward from the diver's mask.

   The boiling water sent bubbles racing across the surface of the pot.

   Note

   The ordinary -s plural, and one spelling that does three jobs: it is also the present-tense verb in the pot bubbles and the slang word for champagne. The figurative senses of bubble travel into the plural too. Economists can speak of speculative bubbles that inflate and burst, and people can live in separate bubbles of their own, so the word reaches well beyond soap and boiling water.

2. 2
   nounslanguncountable

   Sparkling wine, especially champagne.

   He brought a chilled bottle of bubbles to mark the promotion.

   Pour everyone some bubbles before the midnight countdown begins.

   Similarbubbly, champagne, fizz

   Note

   A party word that keeps its plural shape but behaves like a mass noun: you pour some bubbles or order a glass of bubbles, never a single bubble. Grace Dent, writing in The Guardian in 2011, sets "a glass of bubbles" beside "pamper time" and "some nibbles", which marks its register as cozy and a little knowing. Use it in relaxed talk; where precision matters, say sparkling wine or champagne.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of bubble.

   The hot spring bubbles all year round, even in deep winter.

   Mud bubbles where gases escape from the swamp below.

   Note

   The present-tense form at work in the soup bubbles and, figuratively, in tension that bubbles toward the surface. Nearly all its modern uses take no object. In Northern England and Scotland it can also mean to cry, so a child who bubbles there is weeping. A rare, archaic transitive use meant to dupe or cheat, as when someone bubbles a victim out of money.

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