Hiccups

How to spell hiccups

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hiccups

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hiccups mean?

1. nounRepeated involuntary spasms of the diaphragm that produce a sharp, catching sound.
2. verbMakes the sharp catching sound of an involuntary diaphragm spasm (third person singular).

Hiccups in a sentence

• noun

  The baby got the hiccups after feeding too quickly.

• verb

  The toddler always hiccups when she laughs too hard.

• noun

  A glass of cold water usually cures her hiccups within a minute.

• verb

  He hiccups loudly every time he eats spicy food.

Where does hiccups come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is imitative in origin, formed to echo the abrupt, catching sound of the spasm itself. It first appears in English in the late 1500s in forms such as 'hickup' and 'hicket', both attempts to spell out the involuntary gulping noise, much as 'cuckoo' or 'tweet' mimic other sounds. Over time the spelling settled on 'hiccup', the doubled c reflecting the short, clipped vowel before it. A learned but mistaken variant, 'hiccough', arose later when writers wrongly assumed a link to 'cough'; that fanciful spelling never matched the actual pronunciation and is now largely abandoned. The modern 'hiccups' simply adds the -s ending, either to mark the plural condition or the third-person verb, and the safest spelling to remember is the plain phonetic one with two c's and a p.

How the word is built

• hiccup (imitative of the sound)
• -s (plural / third-person verb ending)