seethe
/siːð
/verb [no object]
1(Of a liquid) boil or be turbulent as if boiling: the grey ocean seethed
Synonyms
boil, bubble, simmer, foam, froth, rise, ferment, fizz, effervesce
teem, swarm, boil, bubble, foam, ferment, swirl, convulse, churn, whirl, surge
1.1 [with object] archaic Cook (food) by boiling it in a liquid: others were cut into joints and seethed in cauldrons made of the animal’s own skins
2(Of a person) be filled with intense but unexpressed anger: inwardly he was seething at the slight to his authority...
- She was seething, but her anger was frighteningly under control.
- The product of a broken home, Tim seethes with a silent rage that manifests itself in exceedingly destructive ways.
- Inwardly he was seething with rage against himself.
Synonyms
be angry, be furious, be enraged, be incensed, be infuriated, be beside oneself, have lost one's temper, have/throw a fit, boil, simmer, be boiling over, chafe, rage, be in a rage, rant, rave, rant and rave, storm, fume, smoulder, spit, breathe fire, burn
informal be livid, be wild, jump up and down, froth/foam at the mouth, be steamed up, be hot under the collar, have steam coming out of one's ears
British informal do one's head/nut in, throw a wobbly, spit feathers
3(Of a place) be crowded with people or things moving about in a rapid or hectic way: the entire cellar was seething with spiders...
- Vienna was a city seething with officials from newly placed international organisations.
- The marine environment seethes with a jumble of signals.
3.1 [with adverbial of direction] (Of a crowd of people) move in a rapid or hectic way: we cascaded down the stairs and seethed across the station (as adjective seething) the seething mass of commuters...
- There's a rich irony in the fact that we load our supermarket trolleys with antibacterial cleaners when we ourselves are seething masses of bacteria of endless variety.
- One moment there was an expanse of green grass, and then, as if by magic, there was a seething, moving mass of blue and white, moving, singing, and embracing, as players struggled to reach the stand.
- She had plunged her hand into the dirty washing basket, only to a find it a seething black mass of ants, attracted by my son's ice-lolly-soaked T-shirt.
Derivatives
seethingly
Origin
Old English sēothan 'make or keep boiling', of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zieden.
Old English sēothan meant ‘make or keep boiling’. The sense ‘be in a state of inner turmoil’ dates from the early 17th century and has parallels in words like stew, which only developed the sense of ‘fret, worry’ in the early 20th century, although stew in your own juice is found from the mid 17th.