Recent Examples on the WebThere are two kinds of moms: the mom who retches at the thought of matching her children, and the mom who stocks her daughter's closet full of tiny nap dresses.—Woman's Day, 21 July 2023 Overtaken by rekindled emotions — and liquid courage — Turizo ends up retching into the nightclub’s toilet while an unmasked Marshmello listens from the next stall over.—Thania Garcia, Variety, 2 Mar. 2023 And when that vomiting is particularly severe, or when patients retch really hard, the pressure inside the esophagus becomes unbearable.—Douglas G. Adler, Discover Magazine, 14 Dec. 2021 Woody Harrelson pops in as the yacht’s Marxist captain, who drunkenly swaps bon mots about socialism with a Ronald Reagan-quoting Russian manure magnate as passengers reel and retch around them.—Sara Stewart, CNN, 1 Dec. 2022 The silverback smelled the smoke from our fire and began roaring and retching to intimidate us.—Jerome Lewis, Scientific American, 26 Apr. 2020 There was one who’d set fire to her own locker, another who quietly cut her arms and legs, another who regularly ran herself to exhaustion around the track and then made retching sounds in the bathroom.—Monica Hesse, Washington Post, 5 Aug. 2019 On a stretcher outside his office, a skeletally thin old man retched loudly; the man’s daughter tried to push more fluids into him.—Peter Schwartzstein, National Geographic, 17 June 2019 When Boca pulled into the Monumental Stadium, River’s home, the players were still coughing and retching on their way to the locker room.—Joshua Robinson, WSJ, 24 Nov. 2018 See More
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'retch.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Middle English *rechen to spit, retch, from Old English hrǣcan to spit, hawk; akin to Old Norse hrækja to spit
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