vomit

present singular third person vomits · participle present vomiting · participle past vomited · past vomited

1. intransitiveTo regurgitate or eject the contents of the stomach through the mouth; puke.

   The fish […] vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jonah 2:10

2. transitiveTo regurgitate and discharge (something swallowed); to spew.

   It is the illicit Christmas pudding an incorrigible servant cooks for the little boy one Christmas Day that sparks Oscar's first crisis of belief, for his father, opposed to Christmas pudding on theological grounds, makes the child vomit his helping.

   1988, Angela Carter, “Peter Carey: Oscar and Lucinda”, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage, published 2013, page 713

3. To eject from any hollow place; to belch forth; to emit.

   She snapped and started vomiting curses at us.

   5 more examples

   Like the sons of Vulcan, vomit smoke.

   Comus

   1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC

   […]a column of smoke, such as might be vomited by a park of artillery, spread noiseless over the fields, the road, the common, and rolled, he said, blue and dim to his very feet.

   1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “Levitical”, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 19

   There was a chest of drawers with an escrutoire top, for Uriah to read or write at of an evening; there was Uriah’s blue bag lying down and vomiting papers; there was a company of Uriah’s books, commanded by Mr. Tidd; there was a corner cupboard; and there were the usual articles of furniture.

   1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, “Somebody Turns Up”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 181

   "Hullo!" said the athlete, and vomited with this greeting a cloud of tobacco-smoke. It must have been imprisoned in his mouth some time, for no pipe was visible.

   1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter III, in The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 43

   After about a minute, the creek bed vomited the debris into a gently sloped meadow. Saugstad felt the snow slow and tried to keep her hands in front of her.

   2012 December 26, John Branch, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2013

plural vomits

1. uncountableusuallyThe regurgitated former contents of a stomach; vomitus.

   For all tables are full of vomite and filthinesse, so that there is no place cleane.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 28:8

2. uncountableusuallyThe act of regurgitating.
3. uncountableusuallyThe act of vomiting.

   He removes his hat without misgiving, he unbuttons his coat and sits down, proffered all pure and open to the long joys of being himself, like a basin to a vomit.

   1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC

4. informaluncountableusuallyAnything that is worthless; rubbish; trash.

   "[Y]ou've spent so much of your life writing romantic vomit for morons that the mushy bit of the brain you did have has gone rancid."

   1936, John Wyndham, Stowaway to Mars, published 1972, page x. 81

5. countableobsoleteusuallyThat which causes vomiting; an emetic.

   He gives your Hollander a vomit.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]