soap bubble

English

Alternative forms

• soap-bubble

Noun

A soap bubble.

soap bubble (plural soap bubbles)

1. A very thin film of soapy water that forms a sphere with an iridescent surface.
2. (figurative) Anything attractive but insubstantial.
   • 1879, John Campbell Shairp, Robert Burns, London: Macmillan:

     These words so pierce this soap-bubble of the metaphysicians, that we can hardly read them without fancying that the poet meant them to be ironical.

Related terms

• soap film

Translations

sphere of soap water

• Danish: sæbeboble c
• Dutch: zeepbel (nl) c
• Esperanto: sapveziko
• Faroese: sápubløðra f
• Finnish: saippuakupla
• French: bulle de savon (fr)
• German: Seifenblase (de) f
• Greek: σαπουνόφουσκα (el) f (sapounófouska)
• Hungarian: szappanbuborék (hu)
• Icelandic: sápukúla (is) f
• Japanese: シャボン玉 (ja) (shabondama)
• Korean: 비눗방울 (ko) (binutbang'ul)
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: савангийн хөөс (savangiin xöös)

• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: såpeboble m or f

  Nynorsk: såpeboble f

• Ottoman Turkish: قندیل (kandil)
• Polish: bańka mydlana (pl) f
• Portuguese: bolha de sabão f
• Romanian: balon de săpun (ro) n
• Russian: мы́льный пузы́рь (ru) m (mýlʹnyj puzýrʹ)
• Slovak: mydlová bublina f
• Spanish: pompa de jabón f
• Swedish: såpbubbla (sv) c
• Turkish: sabun köpüğü (tr), sabun baloncuğu
• Vietnamese: bong bóng xà phòng

anything attractive but unsubstantial

• Polish: bańka mydlana (pl) f