Sputum

Definitions

Matter coughed up and expectorated from the mouth, composed of saliva and discharges from the respiratory passages such as mucus, phlegm or pus.

countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“In the early 1890s the work⟳ in the laboratory consisted of postmortems, urinalyses, and examination of sputums.”

“At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control⟳ and Prevention in Atlanta, the boy’s sputum sat for a month, waiting for its turn⟳ in a slow process⟳ of antibody-matching analysis.”

CEFR level