froth up

present singular third person froths up · participle present frothing up · participle past frothed up · past frothed up

1. intransitiveTo become frothy; to rise with a frothy surface or covered with something resembling froth.

   ‘Then fetch me some,’ said the Whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail.

   1902, Rudyard Kipling, “How the Whale Got His Throat”, in Just So Stories

   3 more examples

   The Spirit mourn'd "Adieu!"—dissolv’d, and left / The atom darkness in a slow turmoil; / As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft, / Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil, / We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft, / And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil: / It made sad Isabella’s eyelids ache, / And in the dawn she started up awake; [...]

   1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, stanza XLI, page 69

   As I passed along the edge of the meadow the cow-parsnip was as tall as I, frothing up to the top of the hedge, putting the faded hawthorn to a wan blush.

   1911, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 8, in The White Peacock

   It was “soperlallie”, or soap berry. It grows in the woods; when you beat the berry it froths up and has a queer bitter taste.

   1941, Emily Carr, chapter 20, in Klee Wyck

   Synonyms: foam up