ebullient

Borrowing from Latin ēbulliēns, present participle of ēbulliō (“I boil”), from bulliō (“I bubble up”) (English boil). Compare bubbling, bubbly, and perky, which use a similar metaphor.

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈbʊljənt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

ebullient (comparative more ebullient, superlative most ebullient)

1. Enthusiastic; high-spirited.

   Synonym: zestful

   • 1908, James Ryder Randall, “Ashes”, in Maryland, my Maryland, and other poems, Baltimore, Md., New York: John Murphy Company, page 45:

     The Spring will come with its ebullient blood, / With flush of roses and imperial eyes

   • 2001, Joyce Carol Oates, Middle Age: A Romance, paperback edition, Fourth Estate, page 233:

     Marina's oddly ebullient words seemed to come to her slow as balloons

   • 2003 February 28, Nick Hopkins, “Spectator and its Tory MP editor may face charges over Taki race rant”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Boris Johnson, the ebullient editor of the Spectator and Tory MP for Henley, is at the centre of a Scotland Yard inquiry over an allegedly racist article by the columnist Taki which provoked death threats against a leading black lawyer.

2. (archaic) Of a liquid: boiling and bubbling, or agitated as if boiling.

   Synonyms: abubble, bubbly; see also Thesaurus:effervescent

3. (archaic) Causing heat.
   • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “A Further Account of the Academy. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan), page 82:

     It is allowed, that Senates and great Councils are often troubled with redundant, ebullient, and other peccant Humours, with many Diſeaſes of the Head and more of the Heart; with ſtrong Convulſions, with grievous Contractions of the Nerves and Sinews in both Hands, but eſpecially the Right; with Spleen, Flatus, Vertigos and Deliriums; with Scrophulous Tumors full of fœtid purulent Matter; with ſower frothy Ructations, with Canine Appetites and Crudeneſs of Digeſtion, beſides many others needleſs to mention.

• e-bulletin

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /eːˈbul.li.ent/, [eːˈbʊlːʲiɛn̪t̪]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /eˈbul.li.ent/, [eˈbulːien̪t̪]

ēbullient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of ēbulliō