gurgitate

English

Etymology

From Latin. The first sense is related to gurges. For the second sense, compare gurgitator.

Verb

gurgitate (third-person singular simple present gurgitates, present participle gurgitating, simple past and past participle gurgitated)

1. To surge (rise) and fall ebulliently, like or as water.
   • 1890, The Eclectic Magazine: Foreign Literature, page 76:

     From the gorge a faint steam rose like mist, and in the utter stillness I could hear, far down, the sound of gurgitating waters. In a little while - how long I could not tell - the moment of eruption would return and flood the chasm.

   • 2010 March 16, Derek Walcott, White Egrets: Poems, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 59:

     In both a cherub smiles at gurgitating, lion-headed fountains, their basins bright with chattering water, repetitious questions; one region consonantal, obdurate, the other vowelled. I pay both allegiance and gratitude, for lights net […]

   • 2012 April 5, R. I. G. Hughes, The Theoretical Practices of Physics: Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 68:

     ... it input in certain prescribed forms for the desired output; it gurgitates for a while; then it drops out the sought-for representation; plonk, on the tray, fully formed, as Athena from the brain of Zeus' (Cartwright 1999: 247).

2. To eat, especially to eat competitively (see competitive eating).
   • 1915, Alcalde, page 484:

     His attitude to statistics can best be indicated by an expression that seems not to have been used in any of the classics, but which involves the idea that he masticates, and gurgitates them before life is extinct.

   • 2006 April 4, Ryan Nerz, Eat This Book: A Year of Gorging and Glory on the Competitive Eating Circuit, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 32:

     It's a head-nodder with Badlands' lyrical formula for gurgitating greatness laid over a loop from Thomas Dolby's eighties rock hit "She Blinded Me with Science." No bunson burners, or beakers [...] Just a competitive eater in sneakers […]

   • 2011 October 1, Bathroom Readers' Institute, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

     [...] the stinkiest cheese, and the hungry "athlete" who excels at gurgitating plenty without regurgitating any[.]

Further reading

• compare “gurgitation”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.