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blubber: blubber: [14] The original notion underlying blubber is of ‘bubbling’ or ‘foaming’, particularly in relation to the sea, and it may, like bubble itself, be an onomatopoeic creation, imitative of the sound of spluttering or popping water. This sense died out in the mainstream language in the 16th century (though it survived longer dialectally), but it lies behind the verbal sense ‘cry copiously’. The development of the noun to its present meaning ‘whale fat’ is not altogether clear, but it may have been via an intermediate 15th-century application to ‘fish’s entrails’, which perhaps bubbled or appeared pustular when ripped open by the fishermen.
bubble: bubble: [14] Several Germanic languages have words that sound like, and mean the same as, bubble – Swedish bubla, for instance, and Dutch bobbel – but all are relatively modern, and there is no evidence to link them to a common source. As likely as not, the whole family of bubble words represents ultimately an attempt to lexicalize the sound of bubbling, by blowing through nearly closed lips.
barmy (adj.): 1530s, "frothing, covered with barm;" see barm + -y (2). Figurative sense of "excited, flighty, bubbling with excitement" is from c. 1600. Meaning "foolish" (1892) is probably an alteration of balmy.
blubber (n.): late 14c., blober "a bubble, bubbling water; foaming waves," probably echoic of bubbling water. Original notion of "bubbling, foaming" survives in the figurative verbal meaning "to weep, cry" (c. 1400). Meaning "whale fat" first attested 1660s; earlier it was used in reference to jellyfish (c. 1600) and of whale oil (mid-15c.). As an adjective from 1660s.
bubble (v.): mid-15c., perhaps from bubble (n.) and/or from Middle Low German bubbeln (v.), probably of echoic origin. Related: Bubbled; bubbling.
burble (v.): "make a bubbling sound," c. 1300, imitative. Related: Burbled; burbling.
fuss (n.): "trifling bustle," 1701, originally colloquial, perhaps an alteration of force (n.), or "echoic of the sound of something sputtering or bubbling" [OED], or from Danish fjas "foolery, nonsense." First attested in Anglo-Irish writers, but there are no obvious connections to words in Irish. To make a fuss was earlier to keep a fuss (1726). Fuss and feathers "bustle and display" is from 1848, American English, suggestive of a game cock or a peacock, originally of U.S. Army Gen. Winfield Scott (1786-1866) in the Mexican war.
Gen. Scott is said to be as particular in matters of etiquette and dress as Gen. Taylor is careless. The soldiers call one "Old Rough and Ready," and the other "Old Fuss and Feathers." ["The Mammoth," Nov. 15, 1848].
loblolly (n.): "thick gruel," 1590s, probably from lob, imitative of bubbling and boiling + lolly, obsolete Devonshire dialect word for "broth, soup, food boiled in a pot."
well (v.): "to spring, rise, gush," Old English wiellan (Anglian wællan), causative of weallan "to boil, bubble up, rise (in reference to a river)" (class VII strong verb; past tense weoll, past participle weallen), from Proto-Germanic *wall- "roll" (cognates: Old Saxon wallan, Old Norse vella, Old Frisian walla, Old High German wallan, German wallen, Gothic wulan "to bubble, boil"), from PIE root *wel- (3) "to turn, roll" (see volvox), on notion of "roiling or bubbling water."