Meaning & use
vomit
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Meanings
verbtransitive or intransitive
to bring food and liquid up from your stomach and out through your mouth
Grammar: Can be used with or without an object: He vomited his dinner. / She felt sick and vomited.
Patterns
- vomit something
- vomit up something
- vomit into something
He drank too much and vomited in the taxi.
The smell made her want to vomit.
The patient vomited up the medicine almost immediately.
noununcountable
the food and liquid that comes up from your stomach when you vomit
Grammar: Usually uncountable; you can say a pool of vomit but not a vomit.
Patterns
- be covered in vomit
- the smell of vomit
The floor was covered in vomit.
There was a strong smell of vomit in the bathroom.
Word forms
| third person singular | vomits |
|---|---|
| past tense | vomited |
| past participle | vomited |
| -ing form | vomiting |
Common combinations
- vomit blood
- If you vomit blood, you should go to the hospital immediately.
- feel like vomiting
- After the roller coaster, I felt like vomiting.
- vomit repeatedly
- The child vomited repeatedly during the night.
- a pool of vomit
- Someone had to clean up a pool of vomit outside the bar.
Synonyms and how they differ
- throw up
- Informal and very common; it is less direct than vomit and is often used in everyday speech.
- be sick
- British and slightly more polite than vomit; it can also mean simply feeling ill, so context matters.
- puke
- Slang and very informal; it sounds crude and is mostly used among friends.
Word family
- vomiting noun
- The act of bringing food up from the stomach; often used in medical contexts.
- vomitous adjective
- Rare and formal; describes something that causes vomiting or smells like vomit.
Commonly confused: vomit or vomitive?
vomit vs vomitive
Vomitive is a rare adjective meaning 'causing vomiting'; it is not the everyday verb or noun.
Practice
Choose the correct sentence:
Choose one answer.
Vomit can take a direct object for what comes up: She vomited the bad fish. 'Vomited on the bad fish' means the fish was outside her body, which is not the intended meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “vomit”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.