spume
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
noun
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
spumesimple
-
spumessimple
-
have spumedperfect
-
has spumedperfect
-
am spumingprogressive
-
are spumingprogressive
-
is spumingprogressive
-
have been spumingperfect progressive
-
has been spumingperfect progressive
Past
-
spumedsimple
-
had spumedperfect
-
was spumingprogressive
-
were spumingprogressive
-
had been spumingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of spume
1300–50; Middle English < Latin spūma foam, froth; akin to foam
Explanation
As a noun, spume means the froth you find on sea water. As a verb, it means to make frothy, as in...well...frothy seawater. If you've ever wondered why seawater produces so much froth, note that the bubbles come from high concentrations of surfactants, or organic material in the water. The spuming, or bubbling action happens when breaking waves introduce air into the water and then trap it in bubble form. To remember spume, just think about the foam that washes up on the beach and sticks there for a time. You could be forgiven for thinking of it as what the ocean spews forth.
Vocabulary lists containing spume
"My Wonder Horse," Vocabulary from the short story
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
"The Odyssey," Vocabulary from Part 1 of the epic poem
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
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.
See Examples For:
The style Matthiessen conjures is almost visual, with fragments of scene description and lines of unattributed dialogue arranged on the page like solitary brushstrokes or like breakers of spume on the open sea.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
And with its evocations of cliffs, peaks, sails and spume, the building’s form relays a sympathetic message from the San Gabriel Mountains looming to the northeast to the surf at the city’s other end.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2019
Dinosaurish creatures as big as skyscrapers do battle with equally gigantic robots on land and sea, pulverizing familiar cities and churning up geysers of spume.
From New York Times ● Jul. 11, 2013
Over at Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, a very lifelike animatronic head, hooked up to a dodgy life-support system of tubes and wires, vomits a frothy spume into a bucket.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 25, 2010
A rainbow flashed through the spume and spray… then the waves smoothed out like a skin and suddenly there was no more river in front, and it was hard to breathe as he went over.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
She covers these turbid, hot-colored grounds with those deft black lines and smudges, plus airbrushed spumes of white or red, and also multicolored halftone dots that form a bridge between image and information.
From New York Times ● Mar. 25, 2021
I watched the spumes of snow spiraling upward from the nearest peak.
From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2019
Ridley Scott used the industrial landscape of his native Teeside as the inspiration for the film's iconic opening shot of a nocturnal cityscape illuminated by hellish spumes of fire.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2017
His grandeur enraged, Loki spumes, “There are no men like me!”
From Time ● Apr. 25, 2012
She laughed and shook her head, fountaining spumes of rain from the ends of her hair.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
At the stroke of 10, gray fog spumed across the turnstiles.
From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2014
As the sullen waters spumed in white fury along the Great Barrier Reef, steely, hidden fingers of coral dug into the bottom of the Endeavour and the hearts of every man aboard.
From Time Magazine Archive
He drove a battered 1974 Plymouth and spumed the new $1.3 million Governor's mansion, living alone in a $400-a-month apartment.
From Time Magazine Archive
As the carrier's five destroyer escorts closed in and depth charges spumed up, the submarine jammed her diving planes into the down position.
From Time Magazine Archive
The huge engine of the Cadillac roared; white smoke spumed from the tailpipe.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
And Tucci, playing a sleazier Tony Stark, is forever spuming the orders and insults of an undersize bully.
From Time ● Jun. 26, 2014
At times the movie plays like a bottle of champagne shaken so thoroughly by pranksters that it keeps spuming its contents till there’s no liquid left to drink.
From Time ● May 30, 2014
Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley sponsored an extravagant welcome, with posters of greeting on every lamppost along the lakefront and fireboats plying the shores of Lake Michigan, spuming red, white and blue colored water.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the opposite side of the earth, in the Yellow Sea of Wei-hai-wei, the spanky new British submarine Poseidon came spuming to the surface like a dolphin after air.
From Time Magazine Archive
When she reached out I retreated, spuming her tentative touch.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
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.
