puke
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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pukes,
present (3rd person singular)
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puked,
past participle, past
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puking
present participle
noun
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vomit.
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any food or drink that is repulsive.
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anything or anyone that is contemptible or worthless.
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verb
noun
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the act of vomiting
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the matter vomited
Usage
What does puke mean? Puke is one of the many informal ways to refer to vomit.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pukesimple
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pukessimple
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have pukedperfect
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has pukedperfect
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am pukingprogressive
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are pukingprogressive
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is pukingprogressive
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have been pukingperfect progressive
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has been pukingperfect progressive
Past
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pukedsimple
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had pukedperfect
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was pukingprogressive
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were pukingprogressive
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had been pukingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of puke
First recorded in 1590–1600; perhaps imitative of the sound
Vocabulary lists containing puke
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:
It’s going to be a long, hot summer for getting COVID, the measles, and milk-borne puke diseases!
From Slate ● Apr. 26, 2025
I was telling my caddie Austin that I felt pretty calm coming down the stretch and he said he was about to puke on the 18th tee!
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2024
Cleaning up after the birds is an awful job: “Two to 3 inches of guano, these birds puke a lot, you get your flies, maggots — it makes you gag,” McFadden said.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 21, 2024
My kids were far away, in Los Angeles, and I was missing them so much I wanted to puke.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 7, 2023
Feels like my blood is on fire and I’m going to puke or pass out or...I don’t know.
From "Free Lunch" by Rex Ogle
The puteketeke, a bird that pukes, grunts, growls and has bizarre mating rituals, won New Zealand’s bird of the century title in a competition where American-British comedian John Oliver's involvement has ruffled some local feathers.
From Reuters ● Nov. 20, 2023
She aspires to be a newscaster but is so camera shy she spectacularly pukes when the red light goes on.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 1, 2023
A scene or two later, the woman has come down with a sudden case of the pukes.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2019
“We were talking last night about how everything the baby does — even if it pukes everywhere — you say, ‘Good job!’”
From New York Times ● Jan. 2, 2019
“If anyone pukes, the other squadron wins,” Bull shouted above the din.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
Nobody puked during one of the slasher films, and the eccentric local we refer to as “the velvet suit guy” behaved himself, for the most part.
From Salon ● Apr. 8, 2024
During the “free fall,” I did a very-not-me, mini fist bump to the cameraman and then nearly puked when the parachute opened.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2022
That’s when I caught a case of severe norovirus and puked so hard that my water broke.
From Slate ● Jan. 13, 2022
“One dog puked up a shark toy. So if you have a dog who goes to the country for the weekend and eats horse poop, he’ll have diarrhea on Monday morning.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 14, 2021
After he puked, I helped him scrub the uninspired doodle from his face.
From "Here to Stay" by Sara Farizan
“The breadth collapse you saw wasn’t just retail puking or hedge funds panicking. It was multiple systematic flows all hitting the sell button at roughly the same time, each one amplifying the others,” McGraw wrote.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 14, 2025
"They are weird puking birds with colourful mullets. What's not to love here?"
From BBC ● Nov. 14, 2023
Oliver described pūteketeke, which number less than 1,000 in New Zealand and are also known as the Australasian crested grebe, as “weird, puking birds with colorful mullets.”
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 13, 2023
At one point, Rink was shouting encouragement to some paddlers from his perch on the front of the boat while the race photographer was hanging off the back, puking.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2023
“Go to the bathroom, and when you’ve finished puking up your guilt wait for me outside, because we still have a long way to go!”
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
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.
