cough
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɒf/
ipa: /kɔːf/
enpr: kôf
ipa: /kɔf/
note: Dublin
ipa: /kɑʔf/
enpr: kŏf
ipa: /kɑf/
note: Indic
ipa: /kɔf/
note: Indic
ipa: /kəf/
homophone: qoph (cot–caught merger)
rhymes: -ɒf
rhymes: -ɔːf
rhymes: -ɑːf
rhymes: -ʌf
Forms: form: coughs
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: Behind me, I heard a distinct, dry cough.
text: [I]t conduceth helpe to the crudities, humidities, and vvindineſſe of the ſtomacke and belly, and to helpe the ſhortneſſe of breath and coughes: […]
ref: 1640, John Parkinson, “Cyperus dulcis rotundus esculentus, Trasi dulce vocatus. The Most Delicate Sweet Cyperus, or Rush Nut.”, in Theatrum Botanicum: The Theater of Plants. Or, An Herball of a Large Extent: […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, →OCLC, page 148:
text: The lumpiſh husband ſnoar'd avvay the night, / Till coughs avvak'd him near the morning light.
ref: 1709, Alexander Pope, “January and May; or, The Merchant’s Tale, from Chaucer”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717, →OCLC, page 223:
text: Dwining ventured to give a low cough once or twice, by way of signal; […]
ref: 1828 May 15, [Walter Scott], chapter I, in Chronicles of the Canongate. Second Series. […] (The Fair Maid of Perth), volume III, Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Co.] for Cadell and Co.; London: Simpkin and Marshall, →OCLC, page 12:
text: 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 and another boy interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 26:
text: Jeeves coughed one soft, low, gentle cough like a sheep with a blade of grass stuck in its throat, and then stood gazing serenely at the landscape.
ref: 1923 May 17, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “The Great Sermon Handicap”, in The Inimitable Jeeves, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, published 1979, →ISBN, page 139:
glosses: A sudden, often involuntary expulsion of air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth.
examples: text: whooping cough
text: Sorry, I can’t come to work today—I’ve got a nasty cough.
text: [John] Fal[staff]. VVhat diſeaſe haſt thou? / [Peter] Bul[lcaff]. A horſon cold ſir, a cough ſir, vvhich I cought vvith ringing in the Kings affaires vpon his coronation day ſir.
ref: c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
text: Cough! you don't need to tell me about a cough. I've always been subject to a cough, all my days. […] O! Eva's cough is not anything.
ref: 1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Foreshadowings”, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume II, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC, page 81:
synonyms: tussis
glosses: A bout of repeated coughing (verb sense 2.1); also, a medical condition that causes one to cough.
glosses: A noise or sound like a cough (sense 1).
glosses: A vocalisation from a bird or other animal resembling a human cough.
Hyponyms: anticough
barking cough
bitonal cough
blood cough
chesty cough
chin cough
chink cough
choking cough
churchyard cough
congested cough
coughless
coughwort
croupy cough
dry cough
effective cough
habit cough
hacking cough
hooping cough
whooping cough
kennel cough
Khumbu cough
lingering cough
loose cough
miner's cough
nasty cough
nervous cough
non-productive cough
obstinate cough
paroxysmal cough
persistent cough
productive cough
retching cough
single cough
smoker's cough
snough
spasmodic cough
spicy cough
staccato cough
tickling cough
tickly cough
tooth cough
tracheal cough
trouser cough
vampire cough
wet cough
Derived terms: 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
coughy
hiccough
Holocough
soften someone's cough
upper airway cough syndrome