keckish

keckish adjective: having a tendency to retch or vomit.

Adjective

keckish (comparative more keckish, superlative most keckish)

(rare) having a tendency to retch or vomit
- Inordinate passion of vomiting, called cholera, is nothing different from a keckish stomach and a desire to cast, but only according to augmentation.1883, originally 1603, Philemon Holland, Plutarch
- "[…] If the queasie stomach must have the pills, they must be either guilded, that children may so please the eye as not to suspect the physicke, or sugard well, that the keckish palat may gulpe downe the cure before it feeles the sower."1812, William Beloe, Anecdotes of literature and scarce books - Volume 6

He Was often confined in his bowels for which he had to take medicine; and as his stomach Was not at all keckish, antimon. tart. formed a considerable portion of his aperient.1834, John Peacock (M.D.), Practical hints on the treatment of several diseases:
That on his forehead might be seen — He had not else so keckish been.1843, Faust, a tragedy, tr. into Engl. verse by J. Birch, with engr. after M. Retszch, Volume 1:

comparative	more keckish
superlative	most keckish

From keck (“to retch”) + -ish.

What does keckish mean?: Keckish means having a tendency to retch or vomit.
How do you use keckish in a sentence?: He Was often confined in his bowels for which he had to take medicine; and as his stomach Was not at all keckish, antimon. tart. formed a considerable portion of his aperient.
What part of speech is keckish?: Keckish is an adjective.

Adapted from Wiktionary: keckish (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: 2026-09-02

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