Sputum

//ˈspjutəm// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Matter coughed up and expectorated from the mouth, composed of saliva and discharges from the respiratory passages such as mucus, phlegm or pus. countable, uncountable

    "In the early 1890s the work in the laboratory consisted of postmortems, urinalyses, and examination of sputums."

  2. 2
    expectorated matter; saliva mixed with discharges from the respiratory passages; in ancient and medieval physiology it was believed to cause sluggishness wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dribbledriveldroolfoamfrothgob

Example

More examples

"Finding TB in young children, in particular, poses a hurdle because youngsters often can’t produce a sputum sample necessary to diagnose the disease."

Etymology

From New Latin, from Latin sputum (“that which is spit out, spittle”), from spuere (“to spit”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.