ebullience
Americannoun
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high spirits; exhilaration; exuberance.
-
a boiling over; overflow.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ebullience
First recorded in 1740–50; ebulli(ent) + -ence
Explanation
Bubbly, loud, and enthusiastic, ebullience means "the quality of being cheerful and full of energy." Take a room full of seven-year-olds and add a bunch of adorable puppies, and you'll end up with ebullience. The Latin word ebullientem, which ebullience comes from, literally means "boiling over." When you see ebullience, you know it; it's not simply happiness or enjoyment, but those emotions bubbling up and overflowing.
Vocabulary lists containing ebullience
Lord of the Flies
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Grade 11, List 4
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Novel Study: Lord of the Flies, Chapters 1–4
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Though often confined to a wheelchair, his eyesight failing, he managed to imbue everything he did with the same urgency and ebullience that had marked his work for decades.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
It’s the immigrants — the immigrants from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela and Mexico and Cuba, who bring ebullience and evident emotion to the game…
From Salon ● Nov. 3, 2025
After a few still-entertaining but slightly off seasons, host Matt Lucas was replaced by Alison Hammond, whose cheerful ebullience has buoyed the vibes in the tent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2024
But medical breakthroughs are rarely straightforward, and the ebullience surrounding GLP-1 agonists is tinged with uncertainty and even some foreboding.
From Science Magazine ● Dec. 13, 2023
The applause, perhaps, lacked something of the vigor, the generosity and celebratory ebullience it had in my previous performance.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
