froth

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Foam.

   “Froth is a very important feature of many types of coffee.”

   “He replaced her again breadthwise on the couch, unable to sit up, with her thighs open, between which I could observe a kind of white liquid, like froth, hanging about the outward lips of that recently opened wound, which now glowed with a deeper red.”

   “Froth or scum at the paper machine consists largely of clay, rosin, and starch.”

   “Shortly after we started, while still off the lower end of the island, we sighted a steep point on the coast where the sea was in a great state of turmoil, white with soapy froth.”

2. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)Unimportant or insubstantial talk, events, or actions; drivel.

   “Thousands of African children die each day: why do the newspapers continue to discuss unnecessary showbiz froth?”

   “The discussion at the conference was mostly froth and posturing.”

   “But is it possible for those who speak of God promiscuously and at random, is it possible that they should utter his Name with reverence, when all the rest of the Discourse is nothing but Froth and Levity?”

   “They are equally useless and equally ridiculous, but the coquet is the most pernicious: his mind is a vacuum, and hers a plenum; froth itself is too ponderous for the one, and nothing but froth is crammed into the other.”

3. (countable, uncountable)The idle rich.

   “That it offers the best imaginable field for the economical employment of the least useful of our population, viz. "the froth and the dregs,” those of both extremes of the social scale who prefer adventure, excitement, action, idleness if you will, to steady plodding business ways.”

   “I do not think that there were in the boxes or the lower part of the house a score of persons who were not identified, in one way or another, with this froth of New York society.”

   “Voltaire says that the population of England is like her ale: at the top there is nothing but froth; at the bottom there is nothing but dregs; but between these extremes all is excellent.”

   “So, as we said, he paints the froth of society; and very gay froth it is, and very pretty bubbles he can make of it; but this is not reconciling classes, or giving a philosophic representation in fection of the great organic being we call the English nation; and so far as My Novel pretends to be anything more than a well-wrought story, constructed out of the old Bulwer-Lytton materials, the pretence is fabuous and the performance does not answer to it.”

4. (countable, uncountable)Highly speculative investment.

   “Efforts of this kind, spurred on to fever heat by tax incentives can only generate inflationary froth - not real hard investment.”

   “In effect Friedman and Scwartz are not blaming the Fed for creating asset market inflation (and as we have seen, this concept should include the empowerment of irrational forces across asset markets including the giant carry trades) by its polices through 1927 and earlier; but they are admitting that there could have been some degree of US stock market "froth" in 1928 onwards (into 1929( (in any case, Friedman and Scwartz do not explicitly refer to the concept of asset price inflation).”

   “There are very clearly signs of late-cycle froth in financial markets, everything from equities, to corporate credit, and real estate, especially in the US and, as a result, the risk of an overdue correction rises by the day.”

   “Froth is what agitates and powers the market, and there are six catalysts that have accelerated market froth, as shown in figure I.2.”

verb

1. (transitive)To create froth in (a liquid).

   “I like to froth my coffee for ten seconds exactly.”

   “One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out.”

   “These sources do not, however, state why the drink is called lambswool. The name comes from the way the apples are roasted until they split open, and their pulp froths over the skin; this is used to float on top of the bowl of drink.”

2. (intransitive)(of a liquid) To bubble.

   “Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast.”

   “English beer, along with European brews, is already the subject of an EEC investigation to determine whether additives like stabilizers (used to prevent frothing during shipment) should be allowed.”

3. (transitive)To spit, vent, or eject, as froth.

   “The Mufti reddens; mark that holy cheek. He frets within, froths treason at his mouth, And churns it thro’ his teeth […]”

   “[…] is your spleen frothed out, or have ye more?”

4. (intransitive)(literally) To spew saliva as froth; (figuratively) to rage, vent one's anger.

   “The clumsy suckling struck out with her still soft claws, opened her frothing mouth until her milk teeth shone.”

   “As doctors tried in vain to save April's right eye, news stories frothed at her assailant. He was “fiendish” (the Examiner), “sadistic” (the News-Call Bulletin), “probably a sexual psychopath” (the Chronicle).”

5. (transitive)To cover with froth.

   “A horse froths his chain.”