cough up

From Middle English coughen up, equivalent to cough + up. Sense 2.1 was perhaps influenced by coffers of money.

• "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."
• ""[…] Usually businessmen. Married, middle-aged guys who'll cough up fifty bucks to smoke my pole.""
• "I have mentioned before how impressed I was when I used a Glasgow suburban train late one Saturday night, when I reached Queen Street the barriers were closed and I had to cough up a princely couple of quid before being allowed through."
• "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.”"
• "Cough it up, Cooper."
• "That team had the game won, but they coughed it up in the end."
• "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."

• shell out
• fork out
• fork over

• expectorate