Definition of "boil"

boil¹

/bɔɪl/

noun
plural boils
1. A localized accumulation of pus in the skin, resulting from infection.

boil²

/bɔɪl/

noun
plural boils
1. The point at which fluid begins to change to a vapour; the boiling point.
2. An instance of boiling.
3. A dish of boiled food, especially seafood.
  Quotations
  This is Brad's classic shrimp boil—a recipe he makes for every tailgate party. Brad demands, “Don't use utensils!” INGREDIENTS: Two 6-ounce boxes Old Bay crab/shrimp boil seasoning […]
  2007 January 30, Angela Skinner, Race Day Grub: Recipes from the NASCAR Family, John Wiley & Sons, page 65
  CRAWFISH BOIL EN GELÉE (TERRINE OF CRAWFISH) […] For a typical Louisiana shrimp boil, use the recipe for Crawfish Boil (page 28), substituting shrimp for the crawfish […]
  2009 September 29, John Besh, My New Orleans: The Cookbook, Andrews McMeel Publishing, pages 28, 30, 123
4. (US) A social event at which people gather to boil and eat food, especially seafood. (Compare a bake or clambake.)
  Quotations
  Men and boys also learn to cook at the public and semipublic food events at which men are the primary cooks. These include crawfish and seafood boils, family boucheries, and community festivals. For example, at one crab boil I attended, a grandfather and his eight-year-old grandson cooked the second batch of crabs […] . The advent of crawfish farming has expanded the availability of live crawfish beyond the old seasonal limits just described, but few Cajuns in St. Martin Parish have crawfish boils, or eat crawfish in any form, out of season.
  1992, C. Paige Gutierrez, Cajun Foodways, Univ. Press of Mississippi, page 89
  The whole live crawfish typically are consumed at home and at crawfish boils and other social events where the crawfish is boiled […]
  1996, United States International Trade Commission, Crawfish Tail Meat from China, page 5
  I met him and his wife, Diane, at a shrimp boil I'd been invited to by another ex-trawler named Lindel.
  2012 November 20, Jill Ann Harrison, Buoyancy on the Bayou: Shrimpers Face the Rising Tide of Globalization, Cornell University Press, page 89
  I also felt the desire to be in a more intimate, familiar setting where we could choose whether or not to talk about our memories of 2005; I ended up spending the evening at a shrimp boil hosted by good friends.
  2018 June 4, Kate Parker Horigan, Consuming Katrina: Public Disaster and Personal Narrative, Univ. Press of Mississippi, page 109
  When Mondale had run for president two summers before, for some reason he opened his campaign in Beaufort, at a shrimp boil in our new waterfront park.
  2020 February 17, Harriet Keyserling, Against the Tide: One Woman's Political Struggle, Univ of South Carolina Press, page 155
5. (rare, nonstandard) The collective noun for a group of hawks.
6. (Scotland, archaic) A bubbling.
  Quotations
  He swam to the place where Mary disappeared but there was neither boil nor gurgle on the water, nor even a bell of departing breath, to mark the place where his beloved had sunk.
  1828, James Hogg, Mary Burnet
verb
third-person singular simple present boils, present participle boiling, simple past and past participle boiled
1. (transitive, of liquids) To heat to the point where it begins to turn into a gas.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To cook in boiling water.
  Quotations
  Toad, that vnder cold ſtone, / Dayes and Nights ha's thirty one: / Sweltred Venom ſleeping got, / Boyle thou firſt i'th'charmed pot.
  c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i], page 143, column 2
3. (intransitive, of liquids) To begin to turn into a gas, seethe.
4. (transitive, UK, informal) To bring to a boil, to heat so as to cause the contents to boil.
  Quotations
  I'll boil the kettle.
  1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, pages 20-21
5. (intransitive, informal, used only in progressive tenses, of weather) To be uncomfortably hot.
6. (intransitive, informal, used only in progressive tenses) To feel uncomfortably hot.
7. (transitive) To form, or separate, by boiling or evaporation.
  Quotations
  Another leader in the packaged product business was the Procter & Gamble Company, formed in Cincinnati in 1837 by William Procter, who molded candles, and his brother-in-law, James Gamble, who boiled soap.
  2016, Alex Groner, American Heritage History of American Business
8. (obsolete) To steep or soak in warm water.
  Quotations
  To try whether seeds be old or new, the sense cannot inform; but if you boil them in water, the new seeds will sprout sooner.
  1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]
9. To be agitated like boiling water; to bubble; to effervesce.
  Quotations
  He maketh the deep to boil like a pot.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Job 12:31
10. To be moved or excited with passion; to be hot or fervid.
  Quotations
  Then boyld my breſt with flame and burning wrath, / To reuenge my town vnto ſuch ruine brought.
  1557 July 1, Virgil, “The Second Boke of Virgiles Aenæis”, in Henry [Howard, Earl] of Surrey, transl., edited by William Bolland, Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis, Turned into English Meter ([Roxburghe Club Publications; I]), London: […] A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […], published 1814
  The city boiled with money. Rents and property values had never been higher, and in the garment industry it was widely held that fashion had never been so fashionable. New restaurants opened every hour.
  2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, page 3

Definition of "boil"

boil1

noun

boil2

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verb

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boil¹

boil²