as in numbness
a lack of emotion or emotional expressiveness
a man of remarkable phlegm, never showing enthusiasm nor displeasure
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Recent Examples of phlegm
Diagnosis of Legionnaires’ disease is made via chest X-ray, urine test and lab analysis of a phlegm sample.
—
Melissa Rudy, FOXNews.com, 20 Aug. 2025
Common causes of brown phlegm include smoking, exposure to toxins or pollutants in the air, cystic fibrosis, and bacterial lung infections.
—Mark Gurarie, Health, 15 June 2025
Signs and symptoms include a cough that lasts for three weeks or longer, coughing up blood or phlegm, chest pain, weakness, fatigue, weight loss, loss of appetite, fever, chills and night sweats, according to the CDC.
—Mary Kekatos, ABC News, 30 Apr. 2025
Common symptoms of pneumonia include chest pain when breathing or coughing; fatigue; fever, sweating and shaking chills; nausea or vomiting; and a cough that produces phlegm, according to the Mayo Clinic.
—Adrianna Rodriguez, USA Today, 2 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for phlegm
Melissa Rudy, FOXNews.com, 20 Aug. 2025
Common causes of brown phlegm include smoking, exposure to toxins or pollutants in the air, cystic fibrosis, and bacterial lung infections.
—Mark Gurarie, Health, 15 June 2025
Signs and symptoms include a cough that lasts for three weeks or longer, coughing up blood or phlegm, chest pain, weakness, fatigue, weight loss, loss of appetite, fever, chills and night sweats, according to the CDC.
—Mary Kekatos, ABC News, 30 Apr. 2025
Common symptoms of pneumonia include chest pain when breathing or coughing; fatigue; fever, sweating and shaking chills; nausea or vomiting; and a cough that produces phlegm, according to the Mayo Clinic.
—Adrianna Rodriguez, USA Today, 2 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for phlegm
Recent Examples of Synonyms for phlegm
Noun
-
Other symptoms include numbness, tingling, or burning around the site of injury.—
Jakob Roze,
Health,
4 Nov. 2025
-
For those of us privileged to be at Rogers Centre in Toronto on Saturday, and surely to many of the millions who watched from afar, the numbness from Game 7 has not worn off.—
Tyler Kepner,
New York Times,
3 Nov. 2025
Noun
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The boy jerks his head as if to wake himself, turns around abruptly and looks the other way, even though there’s nothing special to see besides darkness and emptiness, which is where a living eye should never look.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
10 Nov. 2025
-
Grogan isn’t alone in feeling the emptiness that can follow a massive milestone.—
Orianna Rosa Royle,
Fortune,
9 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Their works push back against the coldness of technology, asserting presence, autonomy, and creative resistance.—
Okla Jones,
Essence,
24 Sep. 2025
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Thematically, this episode is awash in the color blue itself, which many fans interpret as symbolizing coldness and detachment from the music industry.—
Jeff Ihaza,
Rolling Stone,
23 Sep. 2025
Noun
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On the Amazon Prime Video postgame recap of the Lakers-Grizzlies clash, former six-time All-Star power forward Blake Griffin took umbrage with Morant's occasional mid-game bouts with apathy.—
Alex Kirschenbaum,
MSNBC Newsweek,
5 Nov. 2025
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Ross better hit a home run on his next hires, adding executives and a head coach who injects hope into the veins of this fan base like Parcells once did, because at this rate Dolphins apathy will become the constant.—
Omar Kelly
November 4,
Miami Herald,
4 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Phlegm.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/phlegm. Accessed 25 Nov. 2025.
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