Other forms: retching
To retch is to heave as if about to be sick. Retch violently, retching over the sink, made him retch.
It is the heaving without anything coming up, which is the exact distinction from vomiting — dry retching is the phrase. It is a reflex and cannot be suppressed for long. Note the spelling against wretch, which sounds the same and means a miserable person; and that the Old English verb meant to clear the throat.
1verbretchTo heave as if about to be sick.
“The smell from the bins was so bad that it made him retch.”
retch is a heaving.
Old English hraecan means to clear the throat or spit. The word is imitative in origin.
Proto-Indo-European
*kreg- — to caw, crow
Proto-Germanic
*hrēkijaną — to clear one's throat
Proto-West Germanic
*hrākijan
Old English
hrǣċan — to clear the throat, hawk, spit
Middle English
*recchen
English, today
retch
Built from
From Middle English recchen, rechen (attested in arechen), hræcen (“to cough up”), from Old English hrǣċan (“to clear the throat, hawk, spit”), from Proto-West Germanic hrākijan, from Proto-Germanic hrēkijaną (“to clear one's throat”), from Proto-Indo-European kreg- (“to caw, crow”). Cognate with Icelandic hrækja (“to hawk, spit”), li räöke (“to induce vomiting”), bar reckn (“to retch, gag”) and German recken (“to retch, gag”). Also related with German Rachen (“throat”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire