Word of the Day Archive
Sunday November 13, 2005
ebullient \ih-BUL-yuhnt\
, adjective:
1. Overflowing with enthusiasm or excitement; high-spirited.
2. Boiling up or over.
The glasses he wore for astigmatism gave him a deceptively clerkish appearance, for he had an ebullient, gregarious personality, a hot temper, and an outsized imagination.
-- Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
He was no longer an ebullient, energetic adolescent.
-- Linda Simon, Genuine Reality: A Life of William James
Sometimes he would come back from the Drenchery Club holding on to the walls till he got to my office, where he'd be jolly and ebullient. At other times, he'd return morose.
-- Harriet Wasserman, Handsome Is: Adventures with Saul Bellow
Ebullient comes from Latin ebullire, "to bubble up," from e-, "out of, from" + bullire, "to bubble, to boil."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for ebullient
