Regurgitate

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈɡɝ.d͡ʒəˌteɪt/

Definitions

1. To eject consumed food through the mouth while simultaneously restating previously learned information without insightful understanding
2. To bring swallowed food back up into the mouth ; to repeat facts or ideas without personal interpretation or deeper understanding
3. To expel contents of the stomach through the mouth ; to mechanically restate learned material without critical thought

Etymology: "Regurgitate" began as a physical image of water. Its Latin ancestor "gurges" meant a whirlpool or a deep, swirling sea, and "gurgitare" meant to engulf or flood. Adding "re-" ("back") produced a verb meaning to surge back up, like waves or water flowing back out of a depth. The sense of a liquid welling up again is still there in the word's bones, even though the English use is now bodily and mental. The word reached English from Late Latin "regurgitatus," the past participle form that gave English its verb. Its earliest English use was in the sense of water or liquid being thrown back, and the bodily sense of vomiting or bringing up swallowed food came later. The figurative sense, of handing back what one has merely taken in without digesting it, grew naturally from that bodily image.

Synonyms: vomit, bring up, spit up, eject, reproduce

Antonyms: digest, absorb, retain, assimilate, consume