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
The scene is bookended by puke and social/professional humiliation, as the extremely Americanized Audrey struggles to keep down Thousand Year Egg shots, nevermind her guilt about being unable to adequately assimilate into Chinese culture.
From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2023
I spent most of the voyage bent double over a puke bucket, bringing up every scrap of food and swallow of brackish water I choked down.
From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson
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
“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
“That’s two pukes per trip, three to four trips per year. He is a pro at using a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. No mess!”
From Slate ● May 16, 2018
“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
And this time he even went down on one knee and puked, right off the pier, into the water.
From "We Were Here" by Matt De La Peña
She asks her daughter to call her, even if she is "puking up every warning that I gave you," and asks her to "never let shame stop you reaching for your phone".
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
Filled with terms like gamma and vol puking, market dispatches from the strategist the FT once described as a “meat-powered market mystic” do not make for easy reading.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 14, 2025
“They are weird puking birds with colorful mullets. What’s not to love here?”
From Salon ● Nov. 15, 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
Shriya curled her lip in disgust, I thought she might start puking too, but she didn't.
From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely
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.
