cough and a spit

English

Noun

a cough and a spit

1. (film, theater) A minor role.
   • 1992, Film Review, page 6:

     Ray Wise managed his back-to-black-hair role before joining Tim Robbins in Bob Roberts and James Marshall squeezed in his cough and a spit between Gladiator and joining the big boys (Nicholson, Cruise) in A Few Good Men […]

   • 1998, Ken Whitmore, Alfred Bradley, The Final Twist: A Play, page 20:

     Everybody gargling madly and mugging up their lines as though Shakespeare himself was out front. Don't know why I bothered, I only had a cough and a spit.

2. (UK, colloquial) A very short distance.
   • 2009, David Fiddimore, The Forgotten War, page 5:

     […] a Lancaster squadron at Bawne, west of Cambridge — it sits a cough and a spit from the Bedfordshire border.

   • 2013, Russell Cruse, The Rothko Room, page 258:

     […] Stockwell, a cough and a spit from Vauxhall Cross.