Barf

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /bɑːf/

Definitions

1. To expel the contents of the stomach through the mouth, usually involuntarily due to illness or disgust
2. To voluntarily or involuntarily eject the stomach's contents from the mouth, often due to nausea, repulsion, or an adverse reaction to food or drink
3. The act of forcefully discharging what has been consumed back up through the oral cavity, commonly triggered by illness or distasteful stimuli

Etymology: "Barf" is a word whose origin is genuinely unknown: it is probably imitative, meaning its sound was shaped to mirror the retching it describes, the way many words for bodily noises and expulsions arose. The form is first recorded in American English, and its verb sense "to vomit" is the one that has stuck. Because the word is probably imitative, it has no traceable Latin, Greek, or Old English ancestor to point to. Its sound, a short voiced "b" followed by a open vowel and a rough "f", seems designed to convey the physical effort of heaving. Many English words for vomiting and retching share this kind of sound-symbolic shape, so "barf" fits a long pattern rather than a single documented coinage.

Synonyms: vomit, puke, spew

Antonyms: swallow