Bubbles Part I

One need not be a Shakespeare scholar to be familiar with the scene of three witches gathered around a cauldron that contains a boiling liquid. In fact, many who have never seen scene (I enjoyed putting those two words in succession) one of the fourth act of Macbeth will visualize readily that image.

But that is not the image we bring up when we hear the words ebullient, effervescent or exuberant. All three have a generally positive connotation, while the witch scene, with its “Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble” has a distinctly negative tone.

Yet they are all related by bubbles, a very playful and childlike word.

Effervescence is the most recent word to come to English, the only one to have arrived after Shakespeare left this mortal coil (that phrase is from Hamlet, not Macbeth). It came to English in the 1650s (Shakespeare died in 1616) from the French word of the same spelling, which came to France from the Latin word effervescentem, the present participle form of effervescere, which means to boil up or boil over. Its root word is fervere, which is the word from which we get (wait for it…) fervor. Given its original sense of boiling over, it is no surprise that the verb’s definition has come to be something that giving off bubbles of gas (like fermenting liquors) or a display of enthusiasm, excitement or liveliness that is vivacious and ebullient.

Ebullient came to English as an adjective around the same time Shakespeare was writing the Henry VI trilogy, in the 1590s. It came from the Latin word ebullientem, which is the present participle of ebullire, which means to boil over, just like effervescere (I don’t know why there are two words for boil over in Latin – any Latin scholars want to explain?) But the root word for ebullientem is bullire, which means “to bubble.” It came to have the meaning of enthusiastic by the 1660s, and now the adjective means “overflowing with fervor, enthusiasm, or excitement; high-spirited.” It also continues to mean “bubbling up like a boiling liquid.”

The oldest English word is exuberant, and it is the only word not to use bubbles in its definition. The adjective came to English in the mid-15^th century, from the Middle French word exuberant. The French got their word from the Latin word exuberantum, which means “overabundance.” Exuberantum is the present participle of exuberare, which is formed by adding the prefix ex- (meaning “thoroughly”) to uberare, which means to be fruitful. Uberare is related to uber, the Latin word for udder. Perhaps we should think of boiling milk when we use the word exuberant.  It is defined as “effusively and almost uninhibitedly enthusiastic, … abounding in vitality, extremely joyful and vigorous.” It also means (probably in biology class – I didn’t pay attention) profuse in growth or production.

More bubbly words to come next week – stay tuned for Bubbles, Part II. (Love those Latin Numerals.)