cough.
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.
Meaning & usage
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.
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.
To express (words, etc.) in the manner described in etymology 1 sense 1.1.
To surrender (information); to confess.
Chiefly followed by up: to give up or hand over (something); especially, to pay up (money).
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.
To make a noise like a cough.
The engine coughed and sputtered.
To surrender information; to confess, to spill the beans.
Where this word comes from
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. Cognates * 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”)
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.
A bout of repeated coughing (verb etymology 1 sense 2.1); also, a medical condition that causes one to cough.
whooping cough
Sorry, I can’t come to work today—I’ve got a nasty cough.
A noise or sound like a cough (etymology 2, noun sense 1).
A vocalisation from a bird or other animal resembling a human cough.
Where this word comes from
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.
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.
Where this word comes from
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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.