spoom

Pluralspooms

Formsspooms, spooming, spoomed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A type of sorbet made with fruit juice and served chilled.

   Between courses, the chef served a tart lemon spoom to refresh the palate.

   The menu offered a champagne spoom alongside the cheese course.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To sail swiftly with the wind coming from directly behind, whether or not any sails are raised.

   With the gale at her back, the schooner could spoom for hours under bare poles.

   Sailors spoom before a following wind to make swift passage downwind.

   Similarscud

   Note

   A sailing verb that probably began as a variant of spume, "foam", the same word behind the fruit sorbet. It takes before: a ship spooms before the wind, or before a gale. With sails struck in heavy weather, it can spoom under bare poles. Dryden carries it into metaphor when virtue "spooms before a prosperous gale", and Pepys spells it spooned.

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