Spume is a word for froth or foam that has been a part of the English lexicon for more than 600 years. An early example is found in a 14th-century quotation from the English poet John Gower: "She set a cauldron on the fire … and let it boil in such a plight, till that she saw the spume [was] white." "Spume" was borrowed from Anglo-French espume or "spume," and can be traced further back to Latin spuma. "Spuma" is also akin to Old English "fām," a word that is the ancestor of the modern English "foam," a synonym of "spume." Another relative of "spuma" is "pumex," the Latin word for pumice, a volcanic rock with a somewhat foamy appearance that is formed from a rapidly cooling, frothy lava.
The water’s edge was frothed into a pink spume - evidence, Kolya speculated, that the artemia were spawning. Henry Wismayer, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Aug. 2022 The water’s edge was frothed into a pink spume — evidence, Kolya speculated, that the artemia were spawning. Henry Wismayer, Washington Post, 29 Aug. 2022 Standing on these beaches creates a sense of natural infinity – of white sand, of frothy spume, of blue-green water. Angelina Villa-clarke, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2021 In the intervening seven decades, the event has developed from a small sports-car show and race into a weeklong car-and-lifestyle bacchanal that blankets the Monterey Peninsula in plumes of blue smoke and champagne spume. Brett Berk, Car and Driver, 2 Mar. 2018
Word History
Etymology
Noun
Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin spuma — more at foam