in a foam

English

Prepositional phrase

in a foam

1. (idiomatic, dated, literary) Foaming at the mouth.
   • 1716, Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy, John Dryden, Richard Graham, Roger de Piles, The Art of Painting, page 54:

     But that Poet was always in a foam at his ſetting out, even before the Motion of the Race had warm'd him.

   • 1730, Sollom Emlyn, Thomas Salmon (contributors), A Complete Collection of State-trials, and Proceedings for High-treason, and Other Crimes and Misdemeanours: 1685-1696, page 560:

     Yes, the ſecond time he ſaid, that he met the King's guards that were come back all in a foam

   • 1792, Samuel Richardson, The History of Clarissa Harlowe, in a Series of Letters, Volume 6, page 109:

     Horſe and man were in a foam.

   • 1842, J.S. Redfield (publisher), Two Hundred Pictorial Illustrations of the Holy Bible ... Compiled Principally from the Notes to the London Pictorial Bible. Third Series, page 172:

     while the horses and mares were all in a foam, and scarcely able to breathe;