regurgitate
verb
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Something regurgitated has typically been taken in, at least partially digested, and then spit back out—either literally or figuratively. The word often appears in biological contexts (e.g., in describing how some birds feed their chicks by regurgitating incompletely digested food) or in references to ideas or information that has been acquired and restated. A student, for example, might be expected to learn information from a textbook or a teacher and then regurgitate it for a test. Regurgitate, which entered the English vocabulary in the latter half of the 16th century, is of Latin origin and traces back to the Latin word for "whirlpool," which is gurges.
Examples of regurgitate in a Sentence
Jack Guy, CNN, 29 Jan. 2025
These new bots swarm websites not to catalog content but to feed that content to AI, a technology that threatens to replace search as the default means of online discovery (and does so by digesting and regurgitating the content in a monstrous, unciteable form).
—Longreads, 19 Dec. 2024
These sea lilies had likely been eaten by an animal—possibly some type of fish—that subsequently regurgitated the indigestible parts.
—Jonathan Granoff, Newsweek, 29 Jan. 2025
Dutch sea lily expert John Jagt concluded that the throw-up consisted of two different species of sea lilies mixed into a clump and that the creatures were eaten by another animal that had subsequently regurgitated the indigestible skeletal parts of their bodies, according to the release.
—Jonathan Limehouse, USA TODAY, 29 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for regurgitate
Cite this Entry
“Regurgitate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/regurgitate. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
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regurgitate
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regurgitate
verb
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