froth up
verb1
To become frothy; to rise with a frothy surface or covered with something resembling froth.
- 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:
- ‘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:
2 more examples
- 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