Word.ws English Dictionary

boilover

boilover noun: a hazardous situation where an attempt is made to extinguish semi-enclosed oil- or petrochemical-fuelled fire with water, generating steam which propels the burning fuel outwards.

Noun

boilover (countable and uncountable, plural boilovers)

  1. A hazardous situation where an attempt is made to extinguish semi-enclosed oil- or petrochemical-fuelled fire with water, generating steam which propels the burning fuel outwards.
  2. (Australia, New Zealand, countable, slang) A sporting event with an unexpected outcome, especially a horse race where the favourite fails to win.
    • […] there was not much good horsemanship. The Derby itself was an ordinary race, something of a boilover for Dark Star […]1953, Pastoralists' Review (volume 63, issues 7-12, page 716)

Forms of boilover

pluralboilovers

Origin of boilover

Deverbal from boil over.

Questions about boilover

What does boilover mean?
Boilover means a hazardous situation where an attempt is made to extinguish semi-enclosed oil- or petrochemical-fuelled fire with water, generating steam which propels the burning fuel outwards.
What part of speech is boilover?
Boilover is a noun.
What is the plural of boilover?
The plural of boilover is boilovers.

Words near boilover in the dictionary

  1. boiling-point elevation
  2. boilingly
  3. boilings
  4. boiloff
  5. boiloffs
  6. boilover
  7. boilovers
  8. boils
  9. boils away
  10. boils down
  11. boils off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boilover (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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