retch
An unsuccessful effort to vomitAn unsuccessful effort to vomit.
» He retched and then started puking.
marco87 · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
1 sensesAn unsuccessful effort to vomit.
- an involuntary spasm of ineffectual vomiting
Examples
3 sentencesHe retched and then started puking.
Sorry for what I wrote, because I wanted to retch.
Just remembering the smell of that rotten food makes me want to retch.
Translations
4 languagesOrigin
From Middle English *recchen, *rechen (attested in arechen), hræcen (“to cough up”), fromFrom Middle English *recchen, *rechen (attested in arechen), hræcen (“to cough up”), from Old English hrǣċan (“to clear the throat, hawk, spit”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrākijan, from Proto-Germanic *hrēkijaną (“to clear one's throat”), from Proto-Indo-European *kreg- (“to caw, crow”). Cognate with Icelandic hrækja (“to hawk, spit”), Limburgish räöke (“to induce vomiting”), Bavarian reckn (“to retch, gag”) and German recken (“to retch, gag”). Also related with German Rachen (“throat”).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.