coughing up

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To expel from the lungs, throat, stomach, etc. by coughing.
   • He was coughing up blood.
2. (idiomatic, informal, transitive) Of money: to pay or disburse reluctantly.
   • Do you think he'll be able to cough up the three grand by Tuesday?

   Synonyms:

   shell out, fork out, fork over

3. (idiomatic, informal, transitive) Of other objects: to hand over, give.
   • 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
4. (idiomatic, informal, intransitive, slang, transitive) To confess; to give up information.
5. (idiomatic) To lose a competition by one's own mistakes, usually near the end of the contest.
   • That team had the game won, but they coughed it up in the end.
6. (idiomatic, transitive) To spill, to fumble.
   • England had never before come back to win from a margin of more than 12 points, and the errors continued to come thick and fast as Tom Croft became the latest to cough up the ball.2011, Tom Fordyce, Rugby World Cup 2011: England 12-19 France