cough

Meaning

Verb

1. 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.
2. To cause (oneself or something) to be in a certain condition in the manner described in sense 1.1.
3. To express (words, etc.) in the manner described in sense 1.1.
4. To surrender (information); to confess.
5. (slang) Chiefly followed by up: to give up or hand over (something); especially, to pay up (money).
6. 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.
7. To make a noise like a cough.
8. (slang) To surrender information; to confess, to spill the beans.

Noun

1. A sudden, often involuntary expulsion of air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth.
2. A bout of repeated coughing (verb sense 2.1); also, a medical condition that causes one to cough.
3. A noise or sound like a cough (sense 1).

Intj

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.

Synonyms

coughing

cold

🥶

catarrh

hack

have a cough

clear one’s throat

clear the throat

give a cough

tussis

cough up

hoop

expectorate

hawking

head cold

hem

keep quiet

rasp

sneeze

sneezing

spit

have a sore throat

wheeze

gargle

whoop

whooping cough

a cough

utter aham

clear throat

clearing one’s throat

sob convulsively

asthma

bronchitis

chill

choke

cough out

emaciated

wheezing

influenza

hacking

malaria

Pronounced as (IPA)

/kɒf/

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”)