Throw Up
phrasal verbBase throw up · Past threw up · Past Participle thrown up · Present Participle throwing up · 3rd person throws up
Definition
1. (phrasal verb) To vomit — to bring food or liquid back up from your stomach through your mouth.
2. (phrasal verb) To produce or reveal something unexpected — often a problem, question, or surprise.
2. (phrasal verb) To produce or reveal something unexpected — often a problem, question, or surprise.
Context Alive
You're on a boat trip with your friends and the water starts getting rough. The boat is rocking side to side and you start feeling sick. You try to focus on the horizon like someone told you to, but it doesn't help. You rush to the side of the boat and throw up over the railing. Your friend brings you a bottle of water and says "happens to everyone" — but you're already planning to take the bus home.
Meanings
2 meanings 1 To Vomit (Phrasal Verb) Very Common ▼
This meaning is about being physically sick — food or liquid coming back up from your stomach and out through your mouth. Imagine a child eating too much candy at a birthday party and then running around in the garden. Twenty minutes later, her face goes pale and she throws up all over the grass. This is the everyday, informal way to describe vomiting. You might say "I threw up twice last night" when telling someone you were ill, or someone could say "the baby keeps throwing up after feeding" to describe a common problem with newborns. Or picture someone with food poisoning lying on the bathroom floor at three in the morning, throwing up everything they ate for dinner. The word is direct, casual, and the most common way to talk about vomiting in spoken English.
✏️ Throw up is by far the most common informal way to say "vomit" in everyday English. "Vomit" sounds medical and formal — people almost never say it in conversation. Other informal alternatives include be sick (British English: "I was sick last night") and puke (very casual, almost crude). You can also use throw up as a noun: "there was throw-up on the floor."
2 To Produce or Reveal Something Unexpected (Phrasal Verb) Common ▼
This meaning is about a situation, process, or event producing something you didn't expect — usually a problem, question, or interesting result. Imagine a company doing a routine background check on a new employee and the check throws up a criminal record nobody knew about. This is describing something surfacing unexpectedly during a process. You might read that "the investigation threw up some surprising results" in a news article about a police case, or someone could say "the research threw up more questions than answers" when a study leads to new unknowns instead of conclusions. Or think about a builder renovating an old house — when they open up the walls, the work throws up all sorts of problems like rotten pipes and faulty wiring that nobody could see from the outside. The word suggests the discovery was unplanned and often complicates things.
✏️ This second meaning is more common in British English and slightly more formal contexts — news reports, academic writing, business discussions. You'll often hear it with words like problems, questions, surprises, results, and challenges. It's a very useful phrase for describing unexpected outcomes.
Common Patterns
Basic Structures
throw up → used on its own to mean vomit — no object needed
I felt so sick on the bus that I nearly threw up.
throw up + noun → specifies what came back up, or what was produced unexpectedly
She threw up her entire lunch within minutes.
throw up + noun (figurative) → to produce or reveal something unexpected
The audit threw up several problems with the accounts.
Common Structures
feel like throwing up → to feel nauseous — close to vomiting but not there yet
The smell was so bad I felt like throwing up.
keep throwing up → to vomit repeatedly — usually during an illness
He kept throwing up all night and couldn't keep any water down.
make someone throw up → to cause nausea or vomiting — literal or exaggerated
That greasy food made me throw up on the way home.
Collocations
10 collocationsthrow up everywhere
to vomit in an uncontrolled way, making a mess
throw up all night
to be sick repeatedly throughout the night
feel like throwing up
to feel nauseous and close to vomiting
keep throwing up
to vomit again and again, unable to stop
make someone throw up
to cause someone to vomit — literally or as an exaggeration
almost threw up
came very close to vomiting but managed not to
throw up problems
to produce unexpected difficulties during a process
throw up questions
to raise new questions that weren't expected
throw up surprises
to reveal unexpected findings or outcomes
throw up results
to produce outcomes from a test, search, or investigation
Example Sentences
10 examples
1
She ate something bad at the restaurant and threw up as soon as she got home.
She had some dodgy food at the restaurant and was sick the moment she walked through the door.
2
The kids threw up in the back of the car during the long drive.
The children were sick in the back seat on the way there.
3
I feel like I'm going to throw up — can you pull over?
I think I'm about to be sick — can you stop the car?
4
He kept throwing up all night and we had to take him to hospital.
He was sick over and over all night and we ended up rushing him to the emergency room.
5
The smell from the bins was so awful it almost made me throw up.
The stench from the rubbish was so horrible I nearly vomited.
6
The background check threw up some unexpected information about the candidate.
The background check revealed some surprising details about the applicant.
7
The research threw up more questions than it answered.
The study raised more new questions than it resolved.
8
I threw up three times on the ferry — I get terrible seasickness.
I was sick three times on the boat — I suffer from awful motion sickness at sea.
9
The renovation threw up a bunch of problems nobody had expected.
The refurbishment uncovered a load of issues that nobody had predicted.
10
The dog threw up on the carpet and I had to clean it before anyone noticed.
The dog was sick on the rug and I had to sort it out before anyone saw.
Synonyms & Antonyms
6 items
Synonymsvomit
the formal/medical term — rarely used in casual conversation
be sick
very common in British English — "I was sick last night" means I threw up
puke
very informal and slightly crude — stronger and more graphic than throw up
Antonymskeep down
to successfully keep food or drink in your stomach without vomiting
digest
to process food normally through the body — the opposite of rejecting it
swallow
to take food or liquid down into the stomach — the opposite direction