vomit

From Middle English vomiten, from Latin vomitāre (“vomit repeatedly”), frequentative form of vomō (“be sick, vomit”), from Proto-Indo-European *wemh₁- (“to spew, vomit”). Cognate with Old Norse váma (“nausea, malaise”), Old English wemman (“to defile”). More at wem.

• (UK) enPR: vŏm'it, IPA^(key): /ˈvɒmɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɒmɪt
• (US) enPR: vŏm'it, IPA^(key): /ˈvɑmɪt/

• Audio (US):

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vomit (third-person singular simple present vomits, present participle vomiting, simple past and past participle vomited)

1. (intransitive) To regurgitate or eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth; puke.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jonah 2:10:

     The fish […] vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

2. (transitive) To regurgitate and discharge (something swallowed); to spew.
   • 1988, Angela Carter, “Peter Carey: Oscar and Lucinda”, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage, published 2013, page 713:

     It is the illicit Christmas pudding an incorrigible servant cooks for the little boy one Christmas Day that sparks Oscar's first crisis of belief, for his father, opposed to Christmas pudding on theological grounds, makes the child vomit his helping.

3. To eject from any hollow place; to belch forth; to emit.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:

     Like the sons of Vulcan, vomit smoke.

   • 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Levitical”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 19:

     […] a column of smoke, such as might be vomited by a park of artillery, spread noiseless over the fields, the road, the common, and rolled, he said, blue and dim to his very feet.

   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, “Somebody Turns Up”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 181:

     There was a chest of drawers with an escrutoire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an evening; there was Uriah’s blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of Uriah’s books, commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner cupboard; and there were the usual articles of furniture.

   • 1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter III, in The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 43:

     "Hullo!" said the athlete, and vomited with this greeting a cloud of tobacco-smoke. It must have been imprisoned in his mouth some time, for no pipe was visible.

   • 2012 December 26, John Branch, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 November 2013:

     After about a minute, the creek bed vomited the debris into a gently sloped meadow. Saugstad felt the snow slow and tried to keep her hands in front of her.

• See also Thesaurus:regurgitate

vomit (usually uncountable, plural vomits)

1. The regurgitated former contents of a stomach; vomitus.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 28:8:

     For all tables are full of vomite and filthinesse, so that there is no place cleane.

2. The act of regurgitating.
3. The act of vomiting.
   • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:

     He removes his hat without misgiving, he unbuttons his coat and sits down, proffered all pure and open to the long joys of being himself, like a basin to a vomit.

4. (informal) Anything that is worthless; rubbish; trash.
   • 1936, John Wyndham, Stowaway to Mars, published 1972, page x. 81:

     "[Y]ou've spent so much of your life writing romantic vomit for morons that the mushy bit of the brain you did have has gone rancid."

5. (obsolete) That which causes vomiting; an emetic.
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     He gives your Hollander a vomit.

• See also Thesaurus:vomit.

• emetic, heave, retch

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

vomit

1. inflection of vomir:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. third-person singular past historic

vomit

1. third-person singular present active indicative of vomō

• IPA^(key): [voˈmit]

vomit

1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of vomita