Word.ws English Dictionary

gurgitate

gurgitate verb: to surge (rise) and fall ebulliently, like or as water.

Verb

gurgitate (third-person singular simple present gurgitates, present participle gurgitating, simple past and past participle gurgitated)

  1. To surge (rise) and fall ebulliently, like or as water.
    • From the gorge a faint steam rose like mist, and in the utter stillness I could hear, far down, the sound of gurgitating waters. In a little while - how long I could not tell - the moment of eruption would return and flood the chasm.1890, The Eclectic Magazine: Foreign Literature, page 76
    • In both a cherub smiles at gurgitating, lion-headed fountains, their basins bright with chattering water, repetitious questions; one region consonantal, obdurate, the other vowelled. I pay both allegiance and gratitude, for lights net[…]2010 March 16, Derek Walcott, White Egrets: Poems, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 59
  2. To eat, especially to eat competitively (see competitive eating).
    • His attitude to statistics can best be indicated by an expression that seems not to have been used in any of the classics, but which involves the idea that he masticates, and gurgitates them before life is extinct.1915, Alcalde, page 484
    • It's a head-nodder with Badlands' lyrical formula for gurgitating greatness laid over a loop from Thomas Dolby's eighties rock hit "She Blinded Me with Science." No bunson burners, or beakers [...] Just a competitive eater in sneakers[…]2006 April 4, Ryan Nerz, Eat This Book: A Year of Gorging and Glory on the Competitive Eating Circuit, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 32

Forms of gurgitate

third-person singular presentgurgitates
present participlegurgitating
past participlegurgitated
pastgurgitated

Origin of gurgitate

From Latin gurgitātus, past participle of gurgitō. The second sense is partly a back-formation from regurgitate.

Words formed from gurgitate

Questions about gurgitate

What does gurgitate mean?
Gurgitate means to surge (rise) and fall ebulliently, like or as water.
What part of speech is gurgitate?
Gurgitate is a verb.
What is the past tense of gurgitate?
The past tense of gurgitate is gurgitated.

Words near gurgitate in the dictionary

  1. gurgeons
  2. gurges
  3. gurgeses
  4. Gurghiu
  5. gurging
  6. gurgitate
  7. gurgitated
  8. gurgitates
  9. gurgitating
  10. gurgitation
  11. gurgitations

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gurgitate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “gurgitate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gurgitate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.