Word.ws English Dictionary

seething

/ˈsiː.ðɪŋ/

seething adjective: filled with unexpressed anger; in a state of being livid. Also the present participle and gerund of seethe.

Adjective

seething (not comparable)

  1. Filled with unexpressed anger; in a state of being livid.
  2. In a state of extreme volatility; about to boil over; boiling, bubbling.
    • There Grendel was watching his blood flow out into the seething tarn.1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 31
    • But as the nation’s most populous state stares down a seething climate crisis, one that cranked temperatures into triple digits last fall and set off a series of infernos that exploded, into bone dry air, the rebuilding process is beginning to look different.2021 January 15, Debra Kamin, “Hounded by Wildfires, Californians Rethink Their Willingness to Rebuild”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  3. In a state of unceasing and furious activity.
    • Otis was unfeignedly thankful to lay down his work for a little while and escape from the seething, whining, weakly hive, impotent to help itself, but strong in its power to cripple, thwart, and annoy the sunken-eyed man, who, by official irony, was said to be “in charge” of it.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 29
    Synonyms:
    bustling

Noun

seething (plural seethings)

  1. The action of the verb to seethe.
    • Over the winter-solid Roads, goes a great seething,— of mounted younger Gentlemen riding together by the dozens upon rented horses, Express Messengers in love with pure Velocity, Disgruntl'd Suitors with Pistols stuff'd in their Spatterdashes, seal'd Waggons not even a western Black-Boy would think...1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 39, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 395

Also used as

seething is also the present participle and gerund of seethe.

Examples of seething in a sentence

  • I struggle to put to words the seething, undying hatred that I feel for you.
  • Those tapestries were like a zoological garden, seething with slaters and clipshears.
  • The little man was seething and shaking, near collapse with fear and anger.

All 15 example sentences with seething

Synonyms of seething

Forms of seething

pluralseethings

Origin of seething

From Middle English sethyng; equivalent to seethe + -ing.

Words formed from seething

Words that rhyme with seething

Questions about seething

What does seething mean?
Seething means filled with unexpressed anger; in a state of being livid.
What part of speech is seething?
Seething can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce seething?
Seething is pronounced /ˈsiː.ðɪŋ/ (UK).

Words near seething in the dictionary

  1. seether
  2. seethers
  3. seethes
  4. seethest
  5. seetheth
  6. seething
  7. seethingly
  8. seethings
  9. seethrough
  10. Seewald
  11. Seewalds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: seething (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-seething.wav.

Cite this entry: “seething.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/seething. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.