cough
English
Etymology
From Middle English coughen, coghen, from Old English *cohhian (compare Old English cohhetan (“to riot, bluster”)), from Proto-West Germanic *kuh- (“to cough”), ultimately of onomatopoeic origin. Cognate with West Frisian kiche (“to cough”), kochelje (“to cough persistently”), Dutch kuchen (“to cough”), German Low German kuchen (“to cough”), German keuchen (“to pant, gasp”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /kɒf/
- (Conservative RP) IPA(key): /kɔːf/
- (General American) enPR: kôf, IPA(key): /kɔf/
- (cot–caught merger, Canada) enPR: kŏf, IPA(key): /kɑf/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɒf
- Rhymes: -ɔːf
Verb
cough (third-person singular simple present coughs, present participle coughing, simple past and past participle coughed)
- (intransitive) To push air from the lungs in a quick, noisy explosion.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter III, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.” He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.
- 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XI:
- I drew a deep breath, and a moment later wished I hadn't, because I drew it while drinking the remains of my gin and tonic. “Does Kipper know of this?“ I said, when I had finished coughing.
- I breathed in a lungful of smoke by mistake, and started to cough.
-
- (transitive, sometimes followed by "up") To force something out of the throat or lungs by coughing.
- Sometimes she coughed (up) blood.
- (intransitive) To make a noise like a cough.
- The engine coughed and sputtered.
Derived terms
Translations
push air from the lungs
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make a noise like a cough
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Noun
cough (plural coughs)
| Examples | |||
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- A sudden, usually noisy expulsion of air from the lungs, often involuntary.
- Behind me, I heard a distinct, dry cough.
- A condition that causes one to cough; a tendency to cough.
- Sorry, I can't come to work today – I've got a nasty cough.
- Used to focus attention on a following utterance, often a euphemism or an attribution of blame.
- He was – cough – indisposed.
Synonyms
- (condition): tussis
Hyponyms
- barking cough
- bitonal cough
- blood cough
- chesty cough
- choking cough
- churchyard cough
- congested cough
- croupy cough
- dry cough
- effective cough
- habit cough
- hacking cough
- lingering cough
- loose cough
- nasty cough
- nervous cough
- non-productive cough
- obstinate cough
- paroxysmal cough
- persistent cough
- productive cough
- retching cough
- single cough
- smoker's cough
- spasmodic cough
- staccato cough
- tickling cough
- tickly cough
- tooth cough
- tracheal cough
- wet cough
Derived terms
- chin cough
- cough and a spit
- cough attack
- cough button
- cough candy
- cough capsule
- cough drop
- cough drug
- cough expectorant
- cough fracture
- cough impulse
- cough linctus
- cough lolly
- cough lozenge
- cough medicine
- cough mixture
- cough muscle
- cough pill
- cough preparation
- cough reflex
- cough reliever
- cough remedy
- cough suppressant
- cough sweet
- cough syncope
- cough syrup
- cough tablet
- cough tea
- cough test
- hooping cough
- kennel cough
- Khumbu cough
- miner's cough
- soften someone's cough
- spicy cough
- suppress a cough
- trouser cough
- vampire cough
- whooping cough
Translations
expulsion of air from the lungs
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condition
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Anagrams
Middle English
Alternative forms
- cogh, coght, couth, couwe
Etymology
From coughen.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kɔu̯x/, /koːx/
References
- “cough, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
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