Definition of "sputum" []

• Matter coughed up and usually ejected from the mouth, including saliva, foreign material, and substances such as mucus or phlegm, from the respiratory tract. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But Andrew Speaker here has, over the last three days, has undergone a series of what they call sputum tests, which essentially requires him to drink salt water and then cough into a tube and then take samples from inside that tube and look for that TB infection."
• "Katie ` s spokesman says she read the skip beforehand but the word sputum was inserted afterwards and she mispronounced it, "spa-tum" on the air, which explains why she was annoyed at the writer."
• "Katie's spokesman said she read the script beforehand but the word sputum was inserted afterwards and she mispronounced it sputum on the air, which explains why she was annoyed at the writer."