cough
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
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
form: coughing
form: coughed
form: coughed
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: cough
form: cough
form: coughed
form: cough
form: coughest
form: coughed
form: coughedst
form: coughs
form: cougheth
form: coughed
form: cough
form: coughed
form: cough
form: coughed
form: cough
form: -
form: coughing
form: coughed
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.
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”)
Senses: examples: text: Sometimes she coughed up blood.
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:
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: 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.
examples: text: He almost coughed himself into a fit.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: To cause (oneself or something) to be in a certain condition in the manner described in sense 1.1.
examples: text: No ſtationary ſteeds / Cough their ovvn knell, vvhile heedleſs of the ſound / The ſilent circle fan themſelves, and quake.
ref: 1785, William Cowper, “Book IV. The Winter Evening.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, pages 144–145:
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: To express (words, etc.) in the manner described in sense 1.1.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: To surrender (information); to confess.
examples: text: By the time you get back the men will all be striking out for the fire, and we'll break for the house and collar the dollars. Everybody cough up what matches he's got.
ref: 1909 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking”, in Roads of Destiny, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 324:
text: Thanks to Jeeves I was not going to be called on to cough up several thousand quid.
ref: 1923 May 17, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “Pearls Mean Tears”, in The Inimitable Jeeves, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, published 1979, →ISBN, page 40:
text: "Parsloe, will you or will you not cough up that pig?" / "I have not got your pig."
ref: 1929 March–August, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “A Job for Percy Pilbeam”, in Summer Lightning, 1st UK edition, London: Herbert Jenkins […], published 19 July 1929, →OCLC, section II, page 148:
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: Chiefly followed by up: to give up or hand over (something); especially, to pay up (money).
examples: text: I breathed in a lungful of smoke by mistake, and started to cough.
text: Yet notwithſtandyng all this geare, / thou cougheſt ſtill, perdy / Ye are a craftie knaue, you cough / to fare deliciouſly.
ref: 1577, Martial, “Epigrammes out of Martial. [To Parthenope.]”, in Timothe Kendall, transl., Flowers of Epigrammes […], [Manchester]: […] [Charles Simms] for the Spenser Society, published 1874, →OCLC, pages 56–57:
text: Leave procreants alone, and ſhut the dore, / Coffe, or cry hem, if any body come, […]
ref: c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragœdy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. […] (First Quarto), London: […] N[icholas] O[kes] for Thomas Walkley, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 70:
text: "Did your lordship's servant see Simon Glover and his daughter?" said Henry, struggling for breath, and coughing, to conceal from the Provost the excess of his agitation.
ref: 1828 May 15, [Walter Scott], chapter X, 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 259:
text: But often, when thy face [i.e., that of a horse] is turned from the stable, thou hast an unaccountable desire to place it in the position occupied by thy tail: thou stoppest, coughest, shyest, and erst, with swift detorsion, turnest round, then, with sidelong glance of my magic caduceus, ominously wagging between the horizon and thy ample sides, I incite thee on, but rarely does thy pace more than trot, from home.
ref: 1835 January 23 (date written), Frederic James Post, “A Discourse Touching Rides and Riding”, in Extracts from the Diary and Other Manuscripts of the Late Frederic James Post, of Islington. […], London: […] [James Moyes] for private circulation, published 1838, →OCLC, pages 331–332:
text: Tossivi / Tu tossais / Thou coughedst
ref: [[1840], A[ngelo] Renzi, “Verbi. Verbes. Verbs.”, in Le polyglotte improvisé, ou l’art d’écrire les langues sans les appendre. […] [The Improvised Polyglot, or The Art of Writing Languages without Learning Them. […]], Paris: Chez l‘auteur, […]; Chez Baudry, […], et Chez les Principaux Libraries, →OCLC, page 498:
english: The Improvised Polyglot, or The Art of Writing Languages without Learning Them. […]
translation: The Improvised Polyglot, or The Art of Writing Languages without Learning Them. […]
text: After this he fell a-coughing violently, and Stanbury thought it better to leave him.
ref: 1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “Trevelyan Discourses on Life”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume II, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 336:
text: "But it is unfortunate—you find me at the moment—" and he stopped short and coughed.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXXI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 246:
text: 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.
ref: 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
glosses: 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.
examples: text: The engine coughed and sputtered.
text: Wake up, by-and-by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat, coughing along up stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to see—just solid lonesomeness.
ref: 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XIX, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, pages 169–170:
glosses: To make a noise like a cough.
glosses: To surrender information; to confess, to spill the beans.
Derived terms: word: cough down
word: cougher
word: coughing
word: coughingly
word: cough out
word: cough over
word: cough up