Coughing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The involuntary act of forcefully expelling air from the lungs serves to clear airway obstructions
2. it occurs as a reflex response to irritants in the throat or lungs, often indicating underlying health issues
3. A reflex action that pushes air strongly out of the lungs to clear the throat or airways

Etymology: Old English had no clean word for this bodily reflex, and the verb "cough" seems to have been built from a sound. Its earliest form, *cohhian, is reconstructed from Old English, and it belongs to a family of Germanic words that all imitate the harsh, breathy noise of a throat clearing itself. Middle High German had "kûchen" for breathing out, and Middle Dutch "cuchen" meant the same thing, so the sound was clearly recognised across the region long before English spelled it out. The sense of the word has been broader than we now expect. Middle English "coughen" could also mean "to vomit", and the same root gave the related noun "cough", which referred both to the act and to an illness that caused it. Spanish preserved the onomatopoeic root in "cof", a coughing sound, and Frisian kept "kochelje" for persistent coughing. The "-ing" ending is simply the regular marker that turns the verb into a participle and gerund, so the word's history lies entirely in the root.

Synonyms: clearing the throat, hacking, hawking, sputtering, rasping