12 October 2015

expectorate

[ik-spek-tuh-reyt]

verb (used without object), expectorated, expectorating.

1. to eject or expel matter, as phlegm, from the throat or lungs by coughing or hawking and spitting; spit.
verb (used with object), expectorated, expectorating.
2. to eject or expel (matter) in this way.

Origin of expectorate

Latin

1595-1605; < Latin expectorātus (past participle of expectorāre to expel from the breast), equivalent to ex- ex-1+ pector- (stem of pectus) breast + -ātus -ate1

Related forms

expectorator, noun
unexpectorated, adjective

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for expectorate

Historical Examples

The others, sitting on the floor, backs to the wall and knees drawn up to chins, smoke their pipes and expectorate.
‘Neath Verdun, August-October, 1914
Maurice Genevoix

So absorbed was his attention that he even forgot to expectorate.
Original Short Stories of Maupassant, Volume 1
Guy de Maupassant

He is advised not to blow the nose, but to hawk as much of the secretion as possible backwards and then expectorate it.
A System of Operative Surgery, Volume IV (of 4)
Various

Anagram

orate except
exert ace pot
re exact poet

Today’s quote

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

– Douglas Adams

On this day

12 October 1492 – Christopher Columbus lands on an island in the Bahamas, claiming ‘East Asia’ for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.

12 October 1810 – world’s first Oktoberfest when the people of Munich are invited to celebrate a Bavarian royal wedding.

12 October 1823 – Charles MacIntosh, Scottish inventor, sells his first water-proof ‘rubber raincoat’, which became known as the ‘MacIntosh’ or ‘Mac’.

12 October 1944 – ‘Columbus Day Riot’ in which 35,000 hysterical teenage girls dressed in bobby socks, descend on Times Square, New York City, in anticipation of Frank Sinatra appearing.

12 October 1979 – ‘Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams is first published. He eventually wrote a total of 5 books in the series, with a sixth one being written by Eoin Colfer.

12 October 2002 – Terrorist bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy’s Bar in Kuta, Bali, kill 202 people and injure 209. Members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group linked with Al Qaeda, are convicted of the crime and on 9 November 2006, three of them are executed by firing squad.