foaming

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Related to foaming: foaming at the mouth

foam

(fōm)

1. A colloidal dispersion of a gas in a liquid or solid medium, such as shaving cream, foam rubber, or a substance used to fight fires. A foam may be produced, especially on the surface of a liquid, by agitation or by a chemical reaction, such as fermentation.

2. Any of various light, porous, semirigid or spongy materials, usually the solidified form of a liquid full of gas bubbles, used as a building material or for thermal insulation or shock absorption, as in packaging.

a. Frothy saliva produced especially as a result of physical exertion or a pathological condition.

b. The frothy sweat of a horse or other equine animal.

4. The sea.

v. foamed, foam·ing, foams

v.intr.

1. To produce or issue as foam; froth.

a. To produce foam from the mouth, as from exertion or a pathological condition.

b. To be extremely angry; rage: was foaming over the disastrous budget cuts.

3. To teem; seethe: a playground foaming with third graders.

v.tr.

1. To cause to produce foam.

2. To cause to become foam.

[Middle English fom, from Old English fām.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Adj.	1.	foaming - emitting or filled with bubbles as from carbonation or fermentation; "bubbling champagne"; "foamy (or frothy) beer" bubbling, bubbly, effervescing, frothy, spumy, foamy effervescent - (of a liquid) giving off bubbles
	2.	foaming - producing or covered with lathery sweat or saliva from exhaustion or disease; "the rabid animal's frothing mouth" foamy, frothing unhealthy - not in or exhibiting good health in body or mind; "unhealthy ulcers"

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References in classic literature ?

Here, however, a foaming fool, with extended hands, sprang forward to him and stood in his way.

Here, however, did Zarathustra interrupt the foaming fool, and shut his mouth.--

They call thee mine ape, thou foaming fool: but I call thee my grunting- pig,--by thy grunting, thou spoilest even my praise of folly.

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I came on deck, after a good night's rest in spite of my poor knee, to find the Ghost foaming along, wing-and- wing, and every sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern.

It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait with which we are leaving San Francisco behind and with which we are foaming down upon the tropics.

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All eyes were strained after the little bark as it pulled for shore, rising and sinking with the huge rolling waves, until it entered, a mere speck, among the foaming breakers, and was soon lost to view.

Nothing was to be seen but a wild chaos of tumbling waves breaking upon the bar, and apparently forming a foaming barrier from shore to shore.

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Next moment with a rapid, nameless impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale.

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In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves.

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One day, when a fearful storm raged far and wide, and the Spirits saw great billows rolling like heavy clouds above their heads, and heard the wild winds sounding far away, down through the foaming waves a little child came floating to their home; its eyes were closed as if in sleep, the long hair fell like sea-weed round its pale, cold face, and the little hands still clasped the shells they had been gathering on the beach, when the great waves swept it into the troubled sea.

But the waves dashed foaming up among the bare rocks at her feet, mingling their cold spray with her tears, and gave no answer to her prayer.

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Often he had to cross and recross the rushing torrent, as it wound foaming and roaring down its broken channel, or was walled by perpendicular precipices; and imminent was the hazard of breaking the legs of the horses in the clefts and fissures of slippery rocks.