cough upverb

• 1

  To expel from the lungs, throat, stomach, etc. by coughing.

  • He was coughing up blood.
  • He was coughing up a lung.
• 2

  informalTo reluctantly or unwillingly give.

  • Do you think he'll be able to cough up the three grand by Tuesday?
  • Thanks to Jeeves I was not going to be called on to cough up several thousand quid.
• 3

  informalTo reluctantly or unwillingly give.

  • By the time you get back the men will all be striking out for the fire, and we ’ll break for the house and collar the dollars. Everybody cough up what matches he ’s got.
  • “Let me have the report by four o’clock.” “Nothing for us, I suppose?” said the elder woman, with a smile. “You wait, my dear. If we get twenty-five pounds fine it has got to go somewhere—Police Fund, of course, but there may be something over. Anyhow, you go and cough it up and then we shall see.”
• 4

  slanginformalTo reluctantly or unwillingly give.

• 5

  To lose a competition by one's own mistakes, usually near the end of the contest.

  • That team had the game won, but they coughed it up in the end.
• 6

  To spill, to fumble.

  • England had never before come back to win from a margin of more than 12 points, and the errors continued to come thick and fast as Tom Croft became the latest to cough up the ball.