HOW TO PRONOUNCE
bubble
/ˈbʌbəl/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:55
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What does bubble mean?
noun
- A spherically contained volume of air or other gas in a liquid, commonly a soapy liquid.
- A small spherical cavity in a solid material.
- Anything resembling a hollow sphere.
More meanings (32)
noun
- (figuratively) Anything lacking firmness or solidity; a cheat or fraud; an empty project.
- A period of intense speculation in a market, causing prices to rise quickly to irrational levels as the metaphorical bubble expands, and then fall even more quickly as the bubble bursts.
- (figuratively) The emotional or physical atmosphere in which a subject is immersed; especially, a homogeneous atmosphere in which subjects are spared exposure to culture or ideas different from their own.
- An officer's station in a prison dormitory, affording views on all sides.
- A small, hollow, floating bead or globe, formerly used for testing the strength of spirits.
- The globule of air in the chamber of a spirit level.
- (slang) A laugh.
- (slang) A Greek.
- In a poker tournament, the point before which eliminated players receive no prize money and after which they do; the situation where all remaining players are guaranteed prize money (in this case, the players are said to have made the bubble); the situation where all remaining players will be guaranteed prize money after some small number of players are eliminated (in this case, the players are said to be on the bubble).
- The cutoff point between qualifying, advancing or being invited to a tournament, or having one's competition end.
- A quarantine environment containing multiple people or facilities isolated from the rest of society.
- The people who are in this quarantine.
- Ellipsis of travel bubble.
- (slang) A bulb or lamp; the part of a lighting assembly that actually produces the light.
- A specialized glass pipe having a sphere-shaped apparatus at one end.
- (obsolete) Someone who has been ‘bubbled’ or fooled; a dupe.
- (historical) Any of the small magnetized areas that make up bubble memory.
verb
- To produce bubbles, to rise up in bubbles (such as in foods cooking or liquids boiling).
- (figuratively) To churn or foment, as if wishing to rise to the surface.
- (figuratively) To rise through a medium or system, similar to the way that bubbles rise in liquid.
- To cry, weep.
- To pat a baby on the back so as to cause it to belch.
- To cause to feel as if bubbling or churning.
- To express in a bubbly or lively manner.
- To form into a protruding round shape.
- To cover with bubbles.
- To bubble in; to mark a response on a form by filling in a circular area (‘bubble’).
- To apply a filter bubble, as to search results.
- To join together in a support bubble
- (slang) To grass (report criminal activity to the authorities).
- (obsolete, rare) To cover or spread with bubbles
- (archaic, rare) To delude, dupe, or hoodwink; to cheat.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/ˈbʌbəl/
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
The attack should be like a wedge well driven home, not like a soap bubble, which distends itself till it bursts.
You see it bubble up, like a true and new nature-spring, through all the surface coatings of culture and artificiality, in Stevenson.
More book examples (3)
Place it lightly in a vice, and in such a position that a spirit-level on top shows the bubble exactly in the centre.
The solid- seeming earth on which you stand is but a heaving bubble, bursting ever and anon in this place and in that.
Almost all graceful and fanciful work is born like a dream, that comes noiselessly, and tarries silently, and goes as a bubble bursts.