eb-uh-LISH-un
Definition
(Noun) A sudden, forceful outburst of emotion or activity; also, the literal act of boiling or bubbling up.
Example
Her ebullition of laughter cut through the tense silence of the boardroom.
Word Origin
Ebullition traces back to the Latin verb ebullire, meaning "to boil up" or "to bubble out," formed from the prefix e- ("out") and bullire ("to boil"). It entered English in the 16th century through Middle French, originally used in a purely physical, scientific sense to describe liquids boiling over. Over time, writers began applying the word metaphorically to human emotion, likening a sudden burst of feeling to a pot boiling over.
Fun Fact
Ebullition shares its root with the more common word "ebullient," which describes a person overflowing with enthusiasm or high spirits — but ebullition itself leans toward the specific moment of eruption rather than a sustained state. Early chemists and alchemists used the term literally to describe the vigorous bubbling of heated substances, long before poets borrowed it for fits of passion or rage. The word also appears in historical medical texts describing feverish or agitated states, where physicians spoke of an "ebullition of blood." Today it survives mostly in literary and formal writing, prized for its vivid, almost theatrical sense of sudden overflow.
