Word.ws English Dictionary

come to a boil

come to a boil verb: to begin to boil.

Verb

come to a boil (third-person singular simple present comes to a boil, present participle coming to a boil, simple past came to a boil, past participle come to a boil)

  1. To begin to boil.
    • I put some water in a saucepan and it came to a boil fairly quickly.
  2. (figuratively) To reach a critical point; come to a head.

Forms of come to a boil

third-person singular presentcomes to a boil
present participlecoming to a boil
pastcame to a boil
past participlecome to a boil
alternative formcome to the boil

Questions about come to a boil

What does come to a boil mean?
Come to a boil means to begin to boil.
What part of speech is come to a boil?
Come to a boil is a verb.
What is the past tense of come to a boil?
The past tense of come to a boil is came to a boil.

Words near come to a boil in the dictionary

  1. come the old soldier
  2. come the raw prawn
  3. come thick and fast
  4. come through
  5. come to
  6. come to a boil
  7. come to a close
  8. come to a head
  9. come to a stand
  10. come to a sticky end
  11. come to a stop

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: come 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: “come to a boil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/come_to_a_boil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.