spit

¹ American  

[spit] / spɪt /

verb (used without object)

spit, spat, spitting

1. to eject saliva from the mouth; expectorate.

2. to express hatred, contempt, etc., by or as if by ejecting saliva from the mouth.

3. to sputter.

   grease spitting on the fire.

   Synonyms:

   spatter

4. to fall in scattered drops or flakes, as rain or snow.

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verb (used with object)

spit, spat, spitting

1. to eject from the mouth.

   The children were spitting watermelon seeds over the fence.

2. to throw out or emit like saliva.

   The kettle spits boiling water over the stove.

3. to set a flame to.

noun

1. saliva, especially when ejected.

2. the act of spitting.

3. Also called spittle.  Entomology. the frothy secretion exuded by spittlebugs.

4. a light fall of rain or snow.

verb phrase

1. spit up to vomit; throw up.

   The wounded soldier spat up blood.

   If you jostle the baby, she'll spit up.

idioms

1. spit and image, exact likeness; counterpart: Also spitting image, spit 'n' image.

   Hunched over his desk, pen in hand, he was the spit and image of his father at work.

spit ² American  

[spit] / spɪt /

noun

1. a pointed rod or bar for thrusting through and holding meat that is to be cooked before or over a fire.

2. any of various rods, pins, or the like used for particular purposes.

3. a narrow point of land projecting into the water.

4. a long, narrow shoal extending from the shore.

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verb (used with object)

spitted, spitting

1. to pierce, stab, or transfix, as with a spit; impale on something sharp.

2. to thrust a spit into or through.

spit ¹ British  

/ spɪt /

verb

1. (intr) to expel saliva from the mouth; expectorate

2. informal (intr) to show disdain or hatred by spitting

3. (of a fire, hot fat, etc) to eject (fragments of coal, sparks, etc) violently and with an explosive sound; splutter

4. (intr) to rain very lightly

5. to eject or discharge (something) from the mouth

   he spat the food out

   to spit blood

6. to utter (short sharp words or syllables), esp in a violent manner

7. Also (NZ): spit tacks.  slang to be very angry

8. informal a command given to someone that he should speak forthwith

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noun

1. another name for spittle

2. a light or brief fall of rain, snow, etc

3. the act or an instance of spitting

4. informal another word for spitting image

spit ² British  

/ spɪt /

noun

1. a pointed rod on which meat is skewered and roasted before or over an open fire

2. Also called: rotisserie.   rotating spit.  a similar device rotated by electricity or clockwork, fitted onto a cooker

3. an elongated often hooked strip of sand or shingle projecting from the shore, deposited by longshore drift, and usually above water

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verb

1. (tr) to impale on or transfix with or as if with a spit

spit ³ British  

/ spɪt /

noun

1. the depth of earth cut by a spade; a spade's depth

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Other Word Forms

• spitter
  noun
• spitlike
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of spit¹

First recorded before 950; Middle English verb spitten, spit(te), Old English spyttan, spittan; cognate with Old Norse spýta, German (dialect) spitzen “to spit”; the noun is derivative of the verb

Origin of spit²

First recorded before 1000; Middle English spit(e), spitte, Old English spitu; cognate with Middle Dutch, Middle Low German spit, spet, Old High German spiz “spit”; akin to Old Norse spīta “wooden peg, spit”

Explanation

To spit is to propel saliva—which is also called spit—from your mouth. Generally speaking, it's rude to spit, particularly if you're at a fancy dinner party. There are some parts of the world where it's socially acceptable to spit in public, and it was once accepted in most of the West too. During the Middle Ages, Western Europeans found it less polite to "suck back" spit than to, well, spit. And spittoons, receptacles for spitting in, were common until the early 20th century, when the influenza epidemic and public health campaigns about tuberculosis greatly reduced public spitting.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

spit spat spitted spitting

The images were of a spit of land where their parents and grandparents once raised potatoes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026

And you can put stuff in a guy’s mouth and have him spit it out, but to really get a good projectile vomit, you need to have some sort of cannon apparatus.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

LinkedIn is peppered with stories of job listings requiring candidates to take questionnaires or use specific words or phrases in cover letters, in order to avoid applications spit out by bots.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026

Endotest is a spit test that looks for genetic material, and Endosure measures electrical signals in the gut using sensor pads on the abdomen.

From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026

When she finished her turn, a whole bunch of tickets spit out of the machine.

From "Trouble at the Arcade (The Hardy Boys: Secret Files, #1)" by Franklin W. Dixon

Police investigators learned that a man had spat on a Tesla that was stopped at the intersection.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026

Potentially resolving the latest spat is a relief to many AI analysts who said Anthropic and the administration have a self-defeating rivalry.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026

The ball skidded, spat and turned, but the eighth-wicket pair survived until Santner skipped one into Atkinson's back pad.

From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026

Canadians thought the spat had been resolved when Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on June 9 that the bridge would officially open in three days.

From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026

They could throw it into the air and spat it back and forth with their hands.

From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder

That’s because the first preseason practice of the Kalen DeBoer era was greeted with a sudden bout of Pacific Northwest weather, as rain spitted on the turf inside Husky Stadium Thursday.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 4, 2022

The whole world is invited, as many reputations as possible are spitted and turned slowly over a sizzling fire, the fumes purposely wafted this way and that.

From Time Magazine Archive

But the King had plenty for himself, his party, and for a banquet of spitted laham-mashwy and rice pilaff for the ship's officers.

From Time Magazine Archive

Bringing a touch of Parisian gallantry to wilderness New York, he cried: "Never was a leg of mutton spitted with greater majesty."

From Time Magazine Archive

Then came the carving of the quarters, and they spitted morsels of lean meat on the long sharp tines and broiled them at arm’s length upon the fire.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

It warrants no qualifiers, no deeper thought, because Boy George clearly didn’t think too hard about it himself before spitting it out into the world.

From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026

Thrust into a position that was not his, Bradley had to endure the jeers of frenzied aficionados at the start of his professional career, along with spitting and tossed coins.

From Barron's ● Jun. 8, 2026

There’s one climactic moment involving spitting when the staging undermines the action.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2026

Armed with spoons, they test the samples in a rapid-fire process of slurping and spitting into metal sinks they call “spittoons.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026

I’m always hopping on and off the bench, pacing back and forth, rattling the safety fence, and spitting sunflower seeds.

From "A High Five for Glenn Burke" by Phil Bildner

Related Words

• drool
• hiss
• spew
• sputter