sputum

That’s sputum, the mucus found deep in the airways.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

"It's meant to break up sputum, but kids under two can't spit it out, so the mucus can be aspirated into the lungs, causing pneumonia - yet it is still prescribed."

From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2025

It also delivered results in less than four hours for urine, pus, and sputum samples, and within one day for blood samples.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 13, 2024

They’ve also helped health clinics in Africa diagnose people with tuberculosis, detecting the bacteria in the sputum samples of 25,000 patients.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2023

The back of the throat and the lining of the windpipe may also slough off, and the dead tissue slides down the windpipe into the lungs or is coughed up with sputum.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

The germ of pulmonary consumption, known as the bacillus tuberculosis, is contained in the breath and the sputa from the lungs of its victims.

From A Practical Physiology by Albert F. Blaisdell

Fourteen years anterior to the researches of Koch, Hering, Swan and Biegler availed themselves, as a homœopathic remedy, of the maceration of tuberculous lungs, and of the sputa of tuberculous subjects.

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

I know that sputa is spittle: but what is tilica?

From A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence The Works Of Cornelius Tacitus, Volume 8 (of 8); With An Essay On His Life And Genius, Notes, Supplements by Cornelius Tacitus

I saw you take the sputa of a ague patient and demonstrate the spores and sporangia of the Gemiasma verdans. 3d.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 by Various

Expectoration is often absent in these cases; where it exists the sputa are either mucous or muco-purulent.

From A System of Practical Medicine by American Authors, Vol. I Volume 1: Pathology and General Diseases by Various