Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Matter coughed up and usually ejected from the mouth, including saliva, foreign material, and substances such as mucus or phlegm, from the respiratory tract.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Spittle; a salival discharge from the mouth.
- n. In pathology, that which is expectorated or ejected from the lungs: used also in the plural, in designation of the individual masses.
Wiktionary
- n. Matter coughed up and expectorated from the mouth, composed of saliva and discharges from the respiratory passages such as mucus, phlegm or pus.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. That which is expectorated; a salival discharge; spittle; saliva.
WordNet 3.0
- n. expectorated matter; saliva mixed with discharges from the respiratory passages; in ancient and medieval physiology it was believed to cause sluggishness
Etymologies
- Latin spūtum, from neuter past participle of spuere, to spit.
Examples
“But Andrew Speaker here has, over the last three days, has undergone a series of what they call sputum tests, which essentially requires him to drink salt water and then cough into a tube and then take samples from inside that tube and look for that TB infection.”
“Katie ` s spokesman says she read the skip beforehand but the word sputum was inserted afterwards and she mispronounced it, "spa-tum" on the air, which explains why she was annoyed at the writer.”
“Katie's spokesman said she read the script beforehand but the word sputum was inserted afterwards and she mispronounced it sputum on the air, which explains why she was annoyed at the writer.”
“This can only happen with the establishment of centres where the patient's sputum is examined without cost for tubercle bacilli.”
“Couric got angry with news editor Jerry Cipriano for using a word she detested - 'sputum' - and the staff got tense when she began slapping him over and over and over again on the arm.”
“The technique, known as sputum microscopy, calls for sticking a piece of bloody phlegm under a microscope, adding a stain, and looking for the bacteria.”
Wired: You've Got Drug-Resistant TB! The Ultimate Diagnostic Device.
“Another one is something called a sputum test, or a smear test they call it, as well, where you actually cough or something into -- you induce a cough and cough on to a little dish.”
“Number two is they do something called a sputum test, where they actually look at the saliva to determine if the bacteria is in there.”
“Also, if he had had what's known as a sputum test, which is an important.”
“He also had what's known as a sputum or smear test looking at whether or not he was actually having the bacteria on -- coming out of his breath.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sputum’.
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The weird, the wonderful and the plain hilarious
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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just neat
insolent, redolent, clammy, chunder, berate, vainqueur, neotony, milquetoast, semprini, twaddle, plethora, enteron and 28 more...
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Awesome Names for Your Heavy Metal Band
onslaught, gamecock, chthonic, hoarfrost, kernicterus, keelhaul, simulacrum, clavicle, interregnum, catafalque, gravamen, blunderbuss and 47 more...
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