expectorate
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
expectoratesimple
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expectoratessimple
-
have expectoratedperfect
-
has expectoratedperfect
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am expectoratingprogressive
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are expectoratingprogressive
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is expectoratingprogressive
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have been expectoratingperfect progressive
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has been expectoratingperfect progressive
Past
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expectoratedsimple
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had expectoratedperfect
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was expectoratingprogressive
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were expectoratingprogressive
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had been expectoratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of expectorate
1595–1605; < Latin expectorātus (past participle of expectorāre to expel from the breast), equivalent to ex- ex- 1 + pector- (stem of pectus ) breast + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
Looking for a fancy way to say "cough up phlegm"? Try expectorate. There's no way around it — expectorating is pretty gross. If you have a respiratory problem like bronchitis, you're going to expectorate a lot: phlegm and mucus will build up in your lungs, and you'll eventually cough it up and spit it out. A doctor might prescribe a special cough medicine to help you expectorate. Sometimes people use expectorate to mean spitting out plain old saliva, too.
Vocabulary lists containing expectorate
100 SAT Words Beginning with "E"
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The Body Eclectic: Words For Common Physical Functions
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Dust Tracks on a Road
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Monday night’s miracle expectorate didn’t have any second spitter.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 19, 2019
Yet these are the 2019 Nats, and they look at external expectations — and, well, expectorate on them.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 27, 2019
In the horse & buggy days, a fellow could chew and expectorate safely.
From Time Magazine Archive
Third Game, For a pitcher to expectorate on a baseball to give it an eccentric curve, became illegal in 1920.
From Time Magazine Archive
“Though, Lloyd, why you can’t spell expectorate when it’s spelled just like it sounds, I cannot fathom.”
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
That you married someone who expectorates brown, reeking spittle undermines your own case for just how disgusting you find this.
From Slate ● Feb. 19, 2014
This squeezes tubercular secretions out into the windpipe, like toothpaste out of a tube; and the patient expectorates.
From Time Magazine Archive
He is polite and refined, chews betel nut "to stimulate his meditative faculties," and expectorates on the floor with easy freedom.
From An Australian in China Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma by Morrison, George Ernest
In the middle of the street he oscillates the prosperous abdomen of which he is proprietor, and rocking on legs arched like basket-handles, he expectorates in wide abundance all around him.
From Under Fire: the story of a squad by Wray, Fitzwater
The hotel official picks his teeth, and expectorates in dangerous proximity to your boots, while entering your name.
From The Truth About America by Money, Edward
Others freely hissed, booed, cheered, stamped, applauded, threw things, ate, talked and expectorated their way through performances.
From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2021
No one wanted to follow him after he expectorated barbs.
From Washington Post ● May 24, 2016
In 1871, when the last Prussian troops marched out of Paris, crowds of bourgeois housewives expectorated lustily.
From Time Magazine Archive
In The Electric Horseman, he simply leaned back, squinted, expectorated a few down-home aphorisms and stole a scene or two from Robert Redford.
From Time Magazine Archive
Mr. Blair started violently as Spotty, seeing the fireplace, expectorated towards it with astonishing accuracy.
From John Dene of Toronto A Comedy of Whitehall by Jenkins, Herbert George
Which could mean the golden era of spitting, slobbering, gleaking, glanding, hawking, hocking, venoming and expectorating is about to dry up.
From Washington Times ● May 10, 2020
You must replace this habit with drinking water or snapping a rubber band on your wrist or perhaps expectorating into a nearby spittoon.
From New York Times ● Dec. 14, 2018
“A land of expectorating cowpokes!” he cries when Jefferson identifies himself as the country’s former president.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 5, 2016
By the end of their sojourn they would be, ideally, clearing their noses without hankies, expectorating on to the pampas, and cleaning their teeth with very big knives, while cursing in idiomatic Spanish.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 1, 2014
I hear him in the basement, expectorating back to a vuvv language soundtrack.
From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
