regurgitate
Americanverb (used without object)
-
regurgitates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
regurgitated,
past participle, past
-
regurgitating
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
regurgitates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
regurgitated,
past participle, past
-
regurgitating
present participle
-
to cause to surge or rush back; vomit.
-
to give back or repeat, especially something not fully understood or assimilated.
to regurgitate the teacher's lectures on the exam.
verb
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to vomit forth (partially digested food)
-
(of some birds and certain other animals) to bring back to the mouth (undigested or partly digested food with which to feed the young)
-
(intr) to be cast up or out, esp from the mouth
-
(intr) med (of blood) to flow backwards, in a direction opposite to the normal one, esp through a defective heart valve
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
regurgitatesimple
-
regurgitatessimple
-
have regurgitatedperfect
-
has regurgitatedperfect
-
am regurgitatingprogressive
-
are regurgitatingprogressive
-
is regurgitatingprogressive
-
have been regurgitatingperfect progressive
-
has been regurgitatingperfect progressive
Past
-
regurgitatedsimple
-
had regurgitatedperfect
-
was regurgitatingprogressive
-
were regurgitatingprogressive
-
had been regurgitatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of regurgitate
1645–55; < Medieval Latin regurgitātus (past participle of regurgitāre ), equivalent to re- re- + gurgit-, stem of gurges whirlpool, flood, stream + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To regurgitate is to bring already swallowed food back up through one's throat and out the mouth. Not so nice in humans, but much more understandable (if still gross) in birds — who feed their baby chicks by regurgitating. Finished cramming for your exam? Ready to do a data dump? Then you're about to regurgitate all you've learned — repeat information verbatim without any real understanding or analysis of it. Don't worry, everyone does it, from high school and college students, to grown-ups in corporate boardrooms.
Vocabulary lists containing regurgitate
Freak the Mighty
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The Stars Beneath Our Feet
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The Hot Zone
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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:
It can also be passed directly to chicks when adults regurgitate food.
From BBC ● Apr. 9, 2026
Traditional media face threats from chatbots and Google's AI overviews, which regurgitate content without users visiting original sites, eroding traffic and revenue.
From Barron's ● Nov. 26, 2025
City dwellers face a particularly nasty flooding threat from rainfall: Overwhelmed stormwater systems can regurgitate raw sewage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 10, 2025
While they hear everything, there is little they can do other than regurgitate the info online.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2025
Not made freaks: not men covered head to toe in tattoos, not women who regurgitate wallets and lightbulbs on command, not moss-haired girls or men who pound stakes into their sinus cavities.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Gibson often regurgitates messages from personal finance and investing books that he reads, or from YouTube videos he watches about finance for beginners.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
The 1995 Korean War Veterans Memorial is centered on figurative sculptures; the 2004 World War II Memorial regurgitates classical architectural banalities — arches, pylons and wreaths — on a scale worthy of Albert Speer.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 16, 2022
The ruminant regurgitates cud from the reticulum, chews it, and swallows it into a third stomach, the omasum, which removes water.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
The movie is just a big, empty declaration of corporate dominance, a whirling CGI tornado that — like a much stupider Tasmanian Devil — ingests, barely processes and then promptly regurgitates everything in its path.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2021
He coughs a deep cough and regurgitates something into the bag.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
The New York Times cut ties with a freelance book critic who admitted that an A.I. editing tool had regurgitated passages from a Guardian article into his draft.
From Slate ● Apr. 17, 2026
Watching AI-generated content, which is regurgitated again and again, fed to a zombie audience that no longer cares.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 23, 2026
Robinson also said the report largely regurgitated facts already in the public domain, citing the controversy of then-Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill at the funeral of Bobby Storey.
From BBC ● Nov. 24, 2025
They’re not up there playing regurgitated versions of “Medicine Bow,” “Don’t Bang The Drum” or “Fisherman’s Blues.”
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2025
The train seemed to plunge downhill now, only to lunge to a stop that shot me out upon a platform feeling like something regurgitated from the belly of a frantic whale.
From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
She argued it risked regurgitating yesterday's arguments with little prospect of success.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
Does being faithful mean regurgitating an author’s words?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
McVay refrained from regurgitating any such nonsense when speaking at the team hotel on the eve of training camp.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2023
"I look around, I see lots of Titanic experts . . . but from my perspective, most are regurgitating things that are already out there."
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2023
I caught Tamika up to speed, regurgitating my phone conversation with Dr. Spires about the possible food allergy.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
