aboil

[uh-boil]

adverb

1. boiling: boiling.

   Make the tea as soon as the water is aboil.

2. in a state of excited activity.

   The street was aboil with Saturday shoppers.

Word History and Origins

Origin of aboil¹

First recorded in 1855–60; a- ¹ + boil ¹

Example Sentences

It had been heating all morning and was nearly aboil.

Read more on Literature

She sounded a little too confident that this was a “them” problem and not an “us” problem, with tempers already aboil on the left over any perceived collaboration with Donald Trump.

Read more on Slate

Clinic waiting rooms, she said, were often aboil with rumors — that the drugs would “rot the uterus” or cause liver cancer or infertility, that the blood samples were sold or used for Satanism, that the foreign scientists conducting the study were secretly spreading H.I.V., that a woman could tell from nausea or tingling whether she was getting the placebo.

Read more on New York Times

Throw these geopolitical developments into the investor-psychology hopper of even a few years ago, and oil markets would be aboil.

Read more on Forbes

There was a libertarian reaction, and it set the Tea Party aboil and helped the G.O.P. triumph in 2010.

Read more on New York Times