Word of the Day Archive
Monday December 3, 2012
effervescent \ef-er-VES-uhnt\
, adjective:
1. High-spirited; vivacious; lively.
2. Effervescing; bubbling.
One of them was a thickset young man who played doggedly without speaking, the other was an effervescent young man with white eyebrows and a nervous manner.
-- James Joyce, Stephen Hero
Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in a bowl of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool of foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles easily succeeded in creating.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, King Pest
That night, when Jennifer and I go out to dinner, she is effervescent with plans for our future.
-- Isaac Asimov, Science Fiction Magazine, Volume 8, 1984
Effervescent originated as a French verb in the 1650s meaning, 'the action of boiling up' (as in water), though it did not assume its figurative meaning relating to personality until 1748.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for effervescent
