cough
UK /kɒf/ · US /kɔf/ verb, noun, interjection
Also a form of couch
Forms coughs coughing coughed coughest coughedst cougheth
- verb Sometimes followed by up: to force (something) out of the lungs or throat by pushing air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth. “Sometimes she coughed up blood.”
- verb To cause (oneself or something) to be in a certain condition in the manner described in etymology 1 sense 1.1. “He almost coughed himself into a fit.”
- verb To express (words, etc.) in the manner described in etymology 1 sense 1.1.
- verb To surrender (information); to confess.
- verb (originally US, slang) Chiefly followed by up: to give up or hand over (something); especially, to pay up (money).
- verb To push air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound) and out through the mouth, usually to expel something blocking or irritating the airway. “I breathed in a lungful of smoke by mistake, and started to cough.”
- verb To make a noise like a cough. “The engine coughed and sputtered.”
- verb (originally US, slang) To surrender information; to confess, to spill the beans.
- noun A sudden, often involuntary expulsion of air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth. “Behind me, I heard a distinct, dry cough.”
- noun A bout of repeated coughing (verb etymology 1 sense 2.1); also, a medical condition that causes one to cough. “whooping cough”
- noun (figurative) A noise or sound like a cough (etymology 2, noun sense 1).
- noun A vocalisation from a bird or other animal resembling a human cough.
- interjection Used to represent the sound of a cough (noun sense 1), especially when focusing attention on a following utterance, often an attribution of blame or a euphemism: ahem. “He was—cough—indisposed.”
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English coughen, coghen (“to cough; to vomit”) [and other forms], from Old English *cohhian (compare Old English cohhetan (“to bluster; to riot; to cough (?)”)), from Proto-West Germanic *kuh- (“to cough”), ultimately of onomatopoeic origin.
* Middle Dutch cuchen (“to cough”) (modern Dutch kuchen (“to cough”); German Low German kuchen (“to cough”))
* Middle High German kûchen (“to breathe (on); to exhale”), kîchen (“to breathe with difficulty”) (modern German keichen, keuchen (“to breathe with difficulty; to gasp, pant”))
* Spanish cof (“coughing sound”)
* West Frisian kiche (“to cough”), kochelje (“to cough persistently”)
The noun is derived from Middle English cough (“a cough; illness causing coughing”) [and other forms], from coughen (verb): see etymology 1.
The interjection is probably derived from the noun.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To expel air, or obstructing or irritating matter, from the lungs or air passages, in a noisy and violent manner.
- verb To expel from the lungs or air passages by coughing; --followed by up; as, to cough up phlegm.
- verb To bring to a specified state by coughing; as, he coughed himself hoarse. To cough down, to silence or put down (an objectionable speaker) by simulated coughing.
- noun A sudden, noisy, and violent expulsion of air from the chest, caused by irritation in the air passages, or by the reflex action of nervous or gastric disorder, etc.
Etymology [Cf. D. kuchen, MHG. k to breathe, G. keuchen to pant, and E. chincough, the first part of which is prob. akin to cough; cf. also E. choke.]
Etymology [Cg. D. kuch. See Cough, v. i.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “cough”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details