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sputum

UK/ˈspjutəm/US/ˈspjutəm/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,398 of 15,258neutral

Sputum is matter coughed up from the chest. A sputum sample, produce sputum, sputum culture.

It is the clinical word, and a sputum sample is how tuberculosis and many chest infections are diagnosed, since what is grown from it names the organism. It is not the same as saliva, and a laboratory will reject a sample that is only spit.

Photo Credit: Content Providers(s): CDC/Dr. Mike Miller · Public domain

Definitions of sputum

  1. 1nounsputumMatter coughed up from the chest.C2

    “The doctor sent a sample of her sputum to the lab to check for infection.”

sputum is a bodily matter.

Remember it

The Latin is to spit. Sputum is what has been spat up, and the word is the doctor's one for it.

hooks ontospit

Where it comes from

Latin sputum means what is spat out, from spuere, to spit.

  1. Latin

    sputum — that which is spit out, spittle

  2. English, today

    sputum

Built from

  • spuere · Latin — to spit

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

sputum in the wild

  • A naked eye exam of the sputum can be done at home by a patient in order to note the various colors (see below).

    Sputum

  • Such color hints are best detected when the sputum is viewed against a bright white background, such as white paper, a white pot, or a white sink surface.

    Sputum

  • A sputum culture is a test to detect and identify bacteria or fungi that infect the lungs or breathing passages.

    Sputum culture

  • A sample of sputum is collected in a sterile, wide-mouthed, dry, leak-proof and break-resistant plastic-container and sent to the laboratory for testing.

    Sputum culture

  • Found in a patient's sputum, they are ciliated columnar cells sloughed from the bronchial mucosa of a patient with asthma.

    Creola bodies

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.