Word.ws English Dictionary

coming to a boil

coming to a boil is the present participle and gerund of come to a boil.

Meaning of come to a 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.

Questions about coming to a boil

What is coming to a boil the present participle and gerund of?
Coming to a boil is the present participle and gerund of come to a boil.

Words near coming to a boil in the dictionary

  1. coming the old acid
  2. coming the old soldier
  3. coming thick and fast
  4. coming through
  5. coming to
  6. coming to a boil
  7. coming to a close
  8. coming to a head
  9. coming to a sticky end
  10. coming to a stop
  11. coming to an end

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coming to a boil (page history and authors); 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: “coming to a boil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coming_to_a_boil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.