Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

expectorate

[ik-spek-tuh-reyt] / ɪkˈspɛk təˌreɪt /
VERB
cough up
Synonyms


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Monday night’s miracle expectorate didn’t have any second spitter.

From Washington Times Nov. 19, 2019

Yet these are the 2019 Nats, and they look at external expectations — and, well, expectorate on them.

From Washington Post Oct. 27, 2019

Eight months ago Florence was already reading, writing, and using such words as "expectorate."

From Time Magazine Archive

In the middle of a conversation, he will often expectorate noisily into a handy spittoon.

From Time Magazine Archive

“Though, Lloyd, why you can’t spell expectorate when it’s spelled just like it sounds, I cannot fathom.”

From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck

That you married someone who expectorates brown, reeking spittle undermines your own case for just how disgusting you find this.

From Slate Feb. 19, 2014

This squeezes tubercular secretions out into the windpipe, like toothpaste out of a tube; and the patient expectorates.

From Time Magazine Archive

It usually commences with, and can scarcely be distinguished from, catarrh, except that it is attended by cough more violent and painful, and the dog expectorates considerably.

From The Dog by William Youatt

The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram, who expectorates liberally by way of preface.

From The Fortune Hunter by Louis Joseph Vance

The clinical symptoms follow those of the auscultation; as the patient expectorates less he is less feeble, coughs less, gains strength, and regains his spirits; but the tubercle remains untouched.

From New, Old, and Forgotten Remedies: Papers by Many Writers by Edward Pollock Anshutz

Others freely hissed, booed, cheered, stamped, applauded, threw things, ate, talked and expectorated their way through performances.

From Salon Dec. 25, 2021

No one wanted to follow him after he expectorated barbs.

From Washington Post May 24, 2016

In 1871, when the last Prussian troops marched out of Paris, crowds of bourgeois housewives expectorated lustily.

From Time Magazine Archive

The smells of raw horsepower, burned rubber and expectorated snuff are cooked by a wicked sun.

From Time Magazine Archive

Having left the spittoon behind him, he again expectorated on the carpet with a malicious pleasure which was visible through his imperturbable mask of good humour.

From Froth by Armando Palacio Vald?s

Which could mean the golden era of spitting, slobbering, gleaking, glanding, hawking, hocking, venoming and expectorating is about to dry up.

From Washington Times May 10, 2020

You must replace this habit with drinking water or snapping a rubber band on your wrist or perhaps expectorating into a nearby spittoon.

From New York Times Dec. 14, 2018

“A land of expectorating cowpokes!” he cries when Jefferson identifies himself as the country’s former president.

From Washington Post Apr. 5, 2016

By the end of their sojourn they would be, ideally, clearing their noses without hankies, expectorating on to the pampas, and cleaning their teeth with very big knives, while cursing in idiomatic Spanish.

From The Guardian Sep. 1, 2014

I hear him in the basement, expectorating back to a vuvv language soundtrack.

From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson




Vocabulary lists containing expectorate


Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Dictionary.com's Learning Companion

Go beyond just looking up words.
Remember them forever with VocabTrainer.

Start training