Forms: 4 couhe, cowȝe, couȝe, 4–6 coughe, 5 cogh(e, caughe, koghwhe, 6 cowgh(e, 5– cough. [f. COUGH v.: cf. laugh.]
1. The affection of coughing at short intervals, lasting for a longer or shorter period of time; a diseased condition of the respiratory organs manifesting itself in fits of coughing.
The affection was down to 1600 usually called the cough (cf. the measles, the cholera, etc.); now in medical language simply cough; a cough is a specific attack, whether of definite duration or chronic, or a particular kind, as ‘a hollow cough,’ ‘a churchyard cough.’
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XX. 81. Coughes [C. couhes] and cardiacles, crampes, and tothaches.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Merch. T., 713. [He] slepith, til that the coughe hath him awaked.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 308. Passiouns of þe eeren, & of þe noseþrillis, & cold couȝe.
a. 1400[?]. Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.), I. 119. Yf the caughe had them caughte, Of yt I coulde them heale.
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, A j b. The same water dronken … at mornynge and at nyght … helpeth them that have the cowghe.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xii. (1887), 61. It is also good for the drie cowghe.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., III. ii. 193. Fal. What disease hast thou? Bul. A whorson cold sir, a cough sir, which I caught with Ringing in the Kings affayres, vpon his Coronation day, sir.
1704. F. Fuller, Med. Gymn., Pref. It is in our Choice, whether a Cough shall run on to a Consumption.
1740–1. Swift, Lett. to Mrs. Whiteway, 13 Jan. My cold is now attended with a cough.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 21. An excellent medicine for coughs.
1845. Budd, Dis. Liver, 247. He was affected with cough and dyspnœa.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., II. xxiv. 81. ‘But she has a cough.’ ‘Cough! you don’t need to tell me about a cough. I ’ve always been subject to a cough, all my days.’
1854. [see COUGHER].
2. A single act of coughing; a violent expulsion of air from the lungs with the characteristic noise.
1742. West, Lett., in Gray’s Poems (1775), 136. It will go on, cough after cough … for half an hour together.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, xxiv. Dwining ventured to give a low cough … by way of signal.
1872. Huxley, Physiol., iv. 94. A violent contraction of the expiratory muscles, producing a cough.
3. attrib. and Comb., as cough-drop, -lozenge, a ‘drop’ or lozenge taken to cure or alleviate a cough; Coughwort, a name proposed by Gerarde for the Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara).
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, cclxxvii. § 2. 667. Tussilago (which may also be Englished Coughwoort).
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 3/1. Vendors of … sweetmeats, brandy-balls, cough-drops.
Mod. Clear your throat with a cough-lozenge.
