Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To expel air from the lungs suddenly and noisily, often to keep the respiratory passages free of irritating material.
- v. To make a noise similar to noisy expulsion of air from the lungs: The engine coughed and died.
- v. To expel by coughing: coughed up phlegm.
- n. The act of coughing.
- n. An illness marked by frequent coughing.
- cough up Slang To hand over or relinquish (money or another possession), often reluctantly.
- cough up Slang To confess or disclose: When he saw that the police might arrest him, he coughed up the details of what he had seen.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make a more or less violent effort, accompanied with noise, to expel the air from the respiratory organs, and force out any matter that irritates the air-passages, or renders respiration difficult.
- To expel from the air-passages by a more or less violent effort with noise and usually with expectoration: followed by up: as, to cough up phlegm.
- n. An abrupt and more or less violent and noisy expiration, excited by some irritation of the respiratory organs. It is an effort to drive out with the expelled breath secreted or foreign matters accumulated in the air-passages. The violent action of the muscles serving for expiration gives great force to the air, while the contraction of the glottis produces the sound. A cough is partly voluntary and partly involuntary, and, according to its character, is symptomatic of many bronchial, pulmonary, nervous, and other diseases, often of comparatively slight importance.
- To lay up for; store as in a coffer.
Wiktionary
- v. To push air from the lungs in a quick, noisy explosion.
- v. To make a noise like a cough
- n. A sudden, usually noisy expulsion of air from the lungs, often involuntary.
- n. A condition that causes one to cough; a tendency to cough.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To expel air, or obstructing or irritating matter, from the lungs or air passages, in a noisy and violent manner.
- v. To expel from the lungs or air passages by coughing; -- followed by
up . - v. To bring to a specified state by coughing.
- n. A sudden, noisy, and violent expulsion of air from the chest, caused by irritation in the air passages, or by the reflex action of nervous or gastric disorder, etc.
- n. The more or less frequent repetition of coughing, constituting a symptom of disease.
WordNet 3.0
- v. exhale abruptly, as when one has a chest cold or congestion
- n. a sudden noisy expulsion of air from the lungs that clears the air passages; a common symptom of upper respiratory infection or bronchitis or pneumonia or tuberculosis
Etymologies
- From Proto-Germanic *kuh- (unattested in Old English, but probably present as *cohhian; compare cohhetan ("shout")). Cognate with Dutch kuchen ("cough"), German keuchen ("pant"), Albanian hukat ("pant, gasp"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English coughen, ultimately of imitative origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I knew it when I was 13, i'm * cough, cough* in my 30's now.”
“Republican entitlement, yea cause rich democrats dont feel entitlement ... * cough cough* kennedys * ahem”
“Funny, I was just thinking about him and how we gave ol Eric a hard time about his lack of posting about Sen.Obama. ** cough, cough** His bias for HRC.”
“Please pass the * cough cough* Log Cabin for these pancakes.”
McCain Campaign Confirms It: Lieberman To Speak At GOP Convention
“Man, that's Derek Jeter coming off the bench to hit for Miguel Cairo * cough Go Yanks * cough*”
Guess Who's Subbing For Hillary On Campaign Trail This Weekend? Bill!
“If you doubt his committment to Democratic values, please, look into his life-story a little bit: voter registration (* cough Clinton suppression cough*), civil rights law, community organizing, powerfully against the war when it mattered, against lobbying interests, against police abuses.”
“Oh, and might I add * cough cough* OnlineDatingProfiler. com was designed by Harry of ….”
“A cultural critic with a big vocabulary and lots of op-ed real estate could write a hell of an essay about how these two white performers deal with race -- and what their different approaches reveal about their generations 'sensibilities. (* cough cough* Frank Rich call me at 1-800-IDEA-4YOU!)”
“If Bush goes Major Kong before or during the early primaries, it would have the further consequence of cementing the nominations for Clinton and Giuliani, who have become the "tough on terror" candidates for their respective parties -- though in certain cases (* cough, Giuliani, cough*), puzzlingly so.”
Nathaniel Bach: "Bomb 'Em and Bail" - Attacking Iran And The Collateral Damage To Our Democracy
“Its a organization dedicated to finding missing persons ... * cough - debtors - cough*.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cough’.
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Of Imitative Origin
Words formed in imitation of the sound of the things they signify.
bawl, biff, blizzard, blob, blooper, bob, boff, bomb, bonkers, boo, borborygmus, brouhaha and 148 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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• Little pains in my butt
Annoying, little, things. In a single word.
psoriasis, interjections, sultriness, spam, mice, mosquitoes, dust, mould, ipod, pimple, blister, sliver and 93 more...
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Public List: Two by Fives
This is an experiment in public lists--something I've been thinking about for some time. The goal is to create a collection of short, powerful, evocative words.
This is an open list. A...icy, howl, hymn, thorn, fire, vile, mist, blunt, scum, dark, shot, gleam and 221 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Sounds
words that describe sound
atchoo, atishoo, babble, bam, bay, beep, blast, blather, bleat, bleep, blip, bong and 242 more...
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EN - pronunciation fun
All words of the poem
The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse <...abyss, ache, actual, advice, aerie, age, ague, aisles, alas, alien, alive, allowed and 406 more...
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sound (quiet)
words for quiet sounds
( randomness, descriptive )sigh, murmur, whisper, whir, rustle, patter, hum, snap, hiss(sss), crackle, bleat, peep and 185 more...
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Open List: There's A Fee For That!
List of fees, tolls, surcharges - stupid, disingenuous, predatory, or otherwise - that are levied by governments, banks, phone companies and businesses against citizens, customers, and consumers.
overdraft, connection, reconnection, deconnection, restocking, late, impact, cancellation, universal default, overuse, usage, transfer-balance and 143 more...
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Ugh!
the ending, that is
clough, enough, cough, through, though, thorough, slough, chough, hough, tough, although, borough and 11 more...
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The chaos of "ough" words
Don't even start me on the chaos of English words containing the sequence "ough". Let's create a list to see how many unique pronunciations we get from this sequence of letters.
though, through, enough, thought, slough, rough, dough, bough, cough, ought, doughty, thorough
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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curligirli0's Words
crapulous, swish, shiatsu, zen, xenoglossy, nincompoop, loquacious, pianissimo, onomatopoeia, imperturbable, silky, hosanas and 379 more...
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Two years
Okay, I admit it. I made a list of words my daughter knew when she was two years old.
bat, baba, a, abalone, about, acorn, adrienne, after, again, airplane, alison, all and 694 more...
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astrosfan's Words
pantaloons, schadenfreude, astonishing, eve, static, freeze, luscious, voluptuous, stagnant, mimic, speed, vespertillinoid and 302 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cough.

chained_bear Don't be embarassed, bilby. We all need a little horehound now and then.
Pleth: alpenhorns? (Seen here.) Jan 28, 2009
plethora What are those alpine didgeridoos really called, anyway? Jan 28, 2009
bilby Horehound? I'd be too embarrassed to ask, what with a husky sore-throat voice and all. Jan 28, 2009
sionnach I think nowadays they're called (reaches for Alpine didgeridoo)
Ri-col-ahhhhhhhhh! Jan 27, 2009
chained_bear Yes, rolig. But they're vile. I think slippery elm works better. Jan 27, 2009
rolig Horehound! My grandmother always would give me horehound lozenges whenever I got a sore throat as a child. Can you get such things today anywhere? Jan 27, 2009
reesetee *shudders* Jan 27, 2009
chained_bear "I shall begin with a COUGH, which is the Foundation of many bad Distempers, and therefore should be taken care of as soon as possible. It may be cured in the Beginning with riding moderately on Horseback every Day, and only taking a little Ground Ivy Tea sweeten'd with Syrup of Horehound, at Night when you go to bed. But in case it be violent, it will be proper to bleed Eight Ounces, and be constant in the Use of the other Remedies. In the mean while, you must use a spare and cooling Diet, without either Flesh or strong Drink. Nor should you stove your self up in a warm Room, but breathe as much as possible in the open Air. And to prevent this Mischief, don't make your self tender, but wash your Head every Day in cold Water, and very often your Feet."
—Every Man His Own Doctor, Or, the Poor Planter's Physician, Third Edition, Printed and Sold by William PARKS, at his Printing-Offices in Williamsburg, and Annapolis. 1736. Jan 27, 2009