cough
Noun pluralcoughs
Formscoughs, coughing, coughed
Pluralcoughs
- 1To expel air sharply from the lungs through the glottis, producing a short, explosive sound, usually to clear something irritating the airway.
Patients with asthma often cough when exposed to smoke or dust.
He began to cough violently after inhaling the fumes.
Note
The everyday intransitive verb has long had a deliberate use beside the reflex. Shakespeare's Othello asks for a signal: "Coffe, or cry hem, if any body come." Walter Scott's Henry coughs "to conceal" his agitation. In Timothe Kendall's 1577 Martial, someone is accused of coughing "to fare deliciously," faking illness for sympathy. A cough can warn, cover or deceive.
- 2A sudden, often involuntary burst of air expelled from the lungs through the glottis, producing a short, explosive sound.
A single sharp cough broke the silence of the lecture hall.
The doctor listened to each cough to judge how deep the infection went.
Note
The noun came from the verb in Middle English, when cough could already name an illness as well as a single burst. It has always been countable: Alexander Pope's husband snores on "till coughs awak'd him." Walter Scott's Dwining gives "a low cough once or twice, by way of signal." That is the deliberate cough of the verb, now something one gives.
- 3A bout of repeated coughing, or a medical condition that causes one to cough repeatedly.
A persistent cough can be a sign of a deeper respiratory problem.
The clinic treated dozens of patients for a winter cough this month.
Note
This is the countable illness: you have a cough, are subject to a cough, or wake with a nasty cough. The article does the work, since a cough is the condition while coughs are separate bursts. Disease names build on it, as in whooping cough, and the medical Latin equivalent is tussis. Harriet Beecher Stowe has a speaker insist that "Eva's cough is not anything."
- 4To force something out of the lungs or throat by pushing air sharply through the glottis, often followed by up.
The patient coughed up blood, alarming the nurses on duty.
He had to cough the lozenge back up when it lodged in his throat.
Note
The transitive sense carries the word's oldest history: Middle English coughen, which could also mean "to vomit," goes back to a Germanic root that imitates the sound itself. With up, the object is something expelled from the chest, such as blood, phlegm or a lodged lozenge. Without up, the object can be the sound: Wodehouse has Jeeves cough "one soft, low, gentle cough."
- 5To give up or hand over something, especially to pay money, often reluctantly.
The company eventually coughed up millions to settle the lawsuit.
Fans had to cough up a small fortune for front-row tickets.
Similarpay
Note
Slang that began in American English and was soon at home in British comedy. O. Henry uses it for handing over matches in 1909, and by 1923 Wodehouse's narrator is relieved not to cough up several thousand quid. The picture is forcing something up from the throat, so the phrase implies reluctance. Keep the up. Money is the usual object, though Wodehouse once demands a pig.
- 6To utter words in a rough, broken manner, forcing them out as if through a cough.
He coughed out a few hoarse syllables before collapsing.
The dying man managed to cough a final warning to his son.
Similarcroak, gasp, splutter, rasp
Note
Here the object is speech or sound, forced out the way a cough forces air. William Cowper's The Task (1785) has stationary horses that "cough their own knell," so the cough becomes their funeral bell. In everyday use the pattern often takes out, as in coughed out a few words. It suggests speech squeezed through a fit rather than delivered.
- 7To make a short, rough sound resembling a cough, as a machine or engine sometimes does.
The aging motor coughed and sputtered in the cold morning air.
Old diesel engines cough loudly before settling into a steady rhythm.
Similarsputter, splutter, choke
Note
This sound verb easily becomes a verb of motion. Engines cough and sputter in place, but Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) has a steamboat "coughing along up stream." There the noise describes the boat's progress. Paired with along, cough lets a machine announce itself as it moves through the scene.
- 8
- 9Used in writing to represent a deliberate cough, drawing attention to a following remark, often one that hints at blame or softens an awkward truth.
The report was finished on time by, cough, the whole team, not just the manager.
Our fearless leader was, cough, mysteriously absent during the crisis.
Similarahem
Note
This is a written gesture: a cough dropped into a sentence to tip off the reader. It probably grew from the noun, and it works like ahem, flagging the next word as a euphemism (indisposed) or a pointed bit of blame. Set it off with dashes or commas so it reads as an aside outside the grammar of the sentence.
- 10Any bird or animal call that resembles the sound of a person coughing.
The leopard's warning cough echoed across the valley at dusk.
Birdwatchers recognized the raven's harsh cough among the calls.
Less common meanings
- 11To surrender information or confess something, giving up what one has been keeping hidden.
After hours in the interview room, the suspect coughed every detail of the plan.
Investigators pressed the witness to cough the names of everyone involved.
Similarreveal, divulge, disclose, confess
Note
Information takes the place of phlegm in this sense: whatever has been withheld is treated as something lodged inside and finally forced out. It is figurative and needs a direct object, such as the names or every detail. Without an object the same idea becomes slang for "confess", and with up it shades toward handing over money.
- 12To confess or give up information, finally telling what one has been concealing.
After a long silence, the suspect finally coughed.
They knew he would cough once the pressure mounted.
Similartalk, confess, crack, squeal
Note
Here confession needs no object at all: the suspect simply coughs. Like the "pay up" slang, it began as American slang, and it sits beside spill the beans in tone. It differs from the transitive "confess" only in leaving out what was told. That makes it suit moments when the act of giving in matters more than the details.
- 13To bring oneself or something into a particular condition through the act of coughing.
He coughed himself hoarse during the long, sleepless night.
The baby could cough herself red in the face during a fit.
Note
A resultative pattern: the coughing is the means, and the phrase after the object names where it ends up, such as into a fit, hoarse, or red in the face. The object is usually a reflexive, and it cannot be dropped. The ordinary intransitive verb takes no object, so he coughed himself hoarse works where he coughed hoarse does not.
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Origins
From Middle English coughen ("to cough; to vomit"), from Old English *cohhian, from Proto-West Germanic *kuh- ("to cough"), ultimately of onomatopoeic origin: that is, it imitates the sound of coughing.
The noun comes from Middle English cough ("a cough; illness causing coughing"), from the verb coughen (see etymology 1). The interjection is probably derived from the noun.