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
“Just remember if everything hurts and you want to puke, you’re doing it right,” an instructor helpfully tells him.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 17, 2024
Guy ran flat-out for 200 yards, so full of primal terror that a fountain of puke started erupting out of his guts all over the fairway as he was running.
From Salon ● Nov. 13, 2023
I lean over and spray puke onto a pile of fly-infested seaweed.
From "We Were Here" by Matt De La Peña
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
I rake a mountain into the front yard and there are still more, like the earth pukes up leaf gunk when I’m not looking.
From "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson
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
Remember when Lucius Fox puked on the field in April, perhaps sensing what was to come?
From Washington Post ● Oct. 5, 2022
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
Your mouth opens and you get a real heave going, and swallow another wave of rancid smell, and that’s when I bent over and puked right into the trench.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
The sellers are winners taking profits at prices of $90,000-plus, not losers puking at the bottom.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 17, 2025
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
The other excuses he's been puking up are even lazier.
From Salon ● Jun. 29, 2023
The crying, the puking don’t mean anything anymore.
From "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
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.
