Word.ws English Dictionary

bring to a boil

bring to a boil verb: to heat something until it reaches its boiling point.

Verb

bring to a boil (third-person singular simple present brings to a boil, present participle bringing to a boil, simple past and past participle brought to a boil)

  1. (US) To heat something until it reaches its boiling point.
  2. (figuratively) To bring (a debate, etc.) to a peak of activity or emotion.

Forms of bring to a boil

third-person singular presentbrings to a boil
present participlebringing to a boil
past participlebrought to a boil
pastbrought to a boil
alternative Australia UKbring to the boil
alternative formcome to a boil

Questions about bring to a boil

What does bring to a boil mean?
Bring to a boil means to heat something until it reaches its boiling point.
What part of speech is bring to a boil?
Bring to a boil is a verb.
What is the past tense of bring to a boil?
The past tense of bring to a boil is brought to a boil.

Words near bring to a boil in the dictionary

  1. bring the house down
  2. bring the lumber
  3. bring the wood
  4. bring through
  5. bring to
  6. bring to a boil
  7. bring to a close
  8. bring to a head
  9. bring to an end
  10. bring to bear
  11. bring to bed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bring to a boil (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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Cite this entry: “bring to a boil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bring_to_a_boil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.