cough
/kɔf/ noun B2- A sudden, often involuntary expulsion of air from the lungs through the glottis (causing a short, explosive sound), and out through the mouth. · Behind me, I heard a distinct, dry cough.
- A bout of repeated coughing (verb etymology 1 sense 2.1); also, a medical condition that causes one to cough. · whooping cough· Sorry, I can’t come to work today—I’ve got a nasty cough.
- A noise or sound like a cough (etymology 2, noun sense 1).
- A vocalisation from a bird or other animal resembling a human cough.
Plural coughs
Phrasal verbs and expressions
From the library
About this time the nurse’s cough was heard on the stairs and the woman entered the room with a cup in her hand.
His escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the thinnest topmost branches crackle and bend under them, and then with a cough and a whoop would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and bring up, hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the next tree.
Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the open work and listening to the furious din of the fight round the Black Panther--the yells and chatterings and scufflings, and Bagheera’s deep, hoarse cough as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his enemies.
“I do not cough for my own amusement,” replied Kitty, fretfully.
Other matches
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