# gulp

Pronunciation: say "GULP" /ɡʌlp/

## Verb

1. To swallow eagerly or in large amounts, often taking something down in a single swallow.
   - Simple: To swallow food or drink quickly, often in one big swallow.
   - _Runners gulp water at the aid stations without breaking stride._
   - _She gulped down her coffee and rushed out the door to catch the train._
3. To react to nervousness or sudden fear by swallowing involuntarily.
   - Simple: To swallow because you suddenly feel scared or nervous.
   - _Witnesses often gulp before answering difficult questions on the stand._
   - _The intern gulped when the CEO turned and asked for his opinion._

## Noun

2. The amount of liquid or food typically taken down in a single swallow.
   - Simple: The amount of food or drink that you swallow at one time.
   - _He drained half the bottle in one long gulp._
   - _Between gulps of soup, she managed to tell us the whole story._
4. The audible sound of swallowing, sometimes a sign of fear or nervousness.
   - Simple: The sound a person or animal makes when swallowing, sometimes because of fear.
   - _A nervous gulp escaped him as the elevator doors slid shut._
   - _She could hear the steady gulps of the horse drinking at the trough._

## Interjection

5. Expresses a moment of sudden fear or dread, imitating the sound of an involuntary nervous swallow.
   - Simple: Used to show that someone is suddenly scared or worried, like a nervous swallow.
   - _Gulp. The email from the boss was marked urgent._
   - _And then the doctor said, "We need to talk." Gulp._

## Noun

6. A small, unspecified number of bytes treated as a single unit, often two. *(rare)*
   - Simple: In computers, a small piece of data, often two bytes.
   - _The driver fetches a gulp of two bytes from the device register._
   - _The parser consumes the input stream in gulps rather than byte by byte._

## Origin

From Middle English gulpen, probably from West Flemish or Middle Dutch gulpen, of uncertain origin. It is perhaps imitative in origin, and is related to words like Dutch galpen ("to roar, squeal") and Old English galpettan ("to gulp down, eat greedily").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/gulp (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).