Upchuck

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To forcefully release the stomach's contents via the mouth, particularly when feeling ill
2. To forcibly eject consumed food or liquid from the stomach through the mouth, often due to nausea or an upset stomach
3. To expel the contents of the stomach abruptly through the mouth due to illness or nausea

Etymology: "Upchuck" is a plain compound: "up" joined to "chuck," so the verb is built from the same pieces as "chuck up," which is its source. "Chuck" in this sense is an informal, mostly American verb meaning to throw, and "chuck up" carried the sense of throwing something up out of the stomach. Adding "up" to the phrase gave the verb a single, fused form that behaves like any other verb. The result is a slang-register word, most familiar in American speech, that sounds more casual than "vomit" or "throw up." Its history is straightforward: the meaning comes directly from the everyday sense of flinging something upward, and the word was never a technical coinage or a borrowing from another language.

Synonyms: vomit, retch, puke, spew, heave