hiccup

What it means

1. A spasm of the diaphragm, or the resulting sound.

   There was a loud hiccup from the back of the room and the class erupted in laughter.

   1. A case of the hiccups; the condition of having the spasms of hiccupping; singultus; diaphragmatic myoclonus.
2. broadlyAny spasm or sudden change.

   Albert didn't notice the switch, the subliminal flash and hiccup in time as the man he had been talking to only seconds before was catapulted backwards half an hour.

   2010, Oli Smith, Nuclear Time, page 197

In a sentence

There was a loud hiccup from the back of the room and the class erupted in laughter.

Where it comes from

From earlier hickop, alteration of earlier hicket, hyckock, from hic (onomatopoeic) + -ock (diminutive suffix). Akin to Scots hick, hix (“hiccup”), West Frisian hik (“hiccup”), Dutch hik (“hiccup”), Middle Low German hükup, huckup, hueckup (modern Low German hick (“hiccup”)), German hicksen (“to hiccup”, verb), Alemannic German Hidsgi (“hiccup”), Danish hikke (“hiccup”), Swedish hicka (“hiccup”), hicka (“to hiccup”, verb), Icelandic hiksti (“hiccup”). Displaced yex, from Middle English yexen, ȝisken, ȝixen, ȝoxen (“to hiccup”), from Old English ġiscian, ġeocsian (“to hiccup”). The double c in the spelling (as opposed to ck) is a remnant of the unetymological hiccough spelling.