cough

Verb

cough (third-person singular simple present coughs, present participle coughing, simple past and past participle coughed)

1. (transitive) 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.
   • Sometimes she coughed up blood.
   • 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.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
2. (transitive) To cause (oneself or something) to be in a certain condition in the manner described in etymology 1 sense 1.1.
   • He almost coughed himself into a fit.
3. (transitive) To express (words, etc.) in the manner described in etymology 1 sense 1.1.
   • No ſtationary ſteeds / Cough their ovvn knell, vvhile heedleſs of the ſound / The ſilent circle fan themſelves, and quake.1785, William Cowper, “Book IV. The Winter Evening.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, pages 144–145
4. (figuratively, transitive) To surrender (information); to confess.
5. (figuratively, slang, transitive) Chiefly followed by up: to give up or hand over (something); especially, to pay up (money).
   • 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.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
   • Thanks to Jeeves I was not going to be called on to cough up several thousand quid.1923 May 17, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC, page 40
6. (intransitive) 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.
   • I breathed in a lungful of smoke by mistake, and started to cough.
   • Yet notwithſtandyng all this geare, / thou cougheſt ſtill, perdy / Ye are a craftie knaue, you cough / to fare deliciouſly.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...
7. (intransitive) To make a noise like a cough.
   • The engine coughed and sputtered.
   • 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...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
8. (intransitive, slang) To surrender information; to confess, to spill the beans.

Noun

cough (plural coughs)

1. A sudden, often involuntary expulsion of air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth.
   • Behind me, I heard a distinct, dry cough.
   • [I]t conduceth helpe to the crudities, humidities, and vvindineſſe of the ſtomacke and belly, and to helpe the ſhortneſſe of breath and coughes: […]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...
2. A bout of repeated coughing (verb etymology 1 sense 2.1); also, a medical condition that causes one to cough.
   • whooping cough
   • Sorry, I can’t come to work today—I’ve got a nasty cough.

   Synonyms:

   tussis

3. (figuratively) A noise or sound like a cough (etymology 2, noun sense 1).
4. A vocalisation from a bird or other animal resembling a human cough.

Interjection

1. 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.
   • He was—cough—indisposed.