How to Use sputum in a Sentence

sputum

noun
  • So does weeks of coughing up sputum (a mix of mucus and saliva).
    — Korin Miller, SELF, 7 Apr. 2018
  • Avoid suppressing a cough, which helps get rid of excess sputum.
    — Korin Miller, Health, 6 Aug. 2023
  • You'll be asked to cough up some sputum with as little saliva as possible.
    — Tanya Feke, Verywell Health, 4 Apr. 2024
  • Phlegm, also known as sputum, is far more difficult to collect than blood or urine.
    — Lizzy Lawrence, STAT, 11 Aug. 2023
  • Testing consists of nose and mouth swabs and collecting sputum, and takes less than a minute.
    — Jun Michael Park, National Geographic, 3 July 2020
  • People can also provide both spit and sputum samples as backups.
    — Alice Park, Time, 18 Mar. 2020
  • Usually, patients will have blood and other samples, such as sputum or pus, taken from a bubo.
    — Adela Suliman, Washington Post, 9 July 2024
  • Common symptoms include a bad cough lasting longer than 3 weeks, chest pain, and coughing up blood or sputum.
    — Brett Molina, USA TODAY, 6 July 2018
  • Symptoms can also include rashes, coughing, shortness of breath, or blood in the sputum.
    — Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Discover Magazine, 16 Jan. 2024
  • The samples can be swabs of the nose or mouth and what is called sputum, which is saliva and mucus from the respiratory tract.
    — cleveland, 12 Mar. 2020
  • The disease usually attacks the lungs—resulting in coughing, bloody sputum, fevers, chills.
    — David Treuer, The New York Review of Books, 6 July 2020
  • Frothy pink sputum accompanied by shortness of breath is a sign of pulmonary edema; blood and fluid leak from the alveoli into the lungs.
    — Jack Feerick, Discover Magazine, 10 Nov. 2020
  • These cases are difficult to detect because people have normal chest x-rays and negative sputum tests.
    — Sofia Moutinho, Scientific American, 14 May 2022
  • One study in Germany looked at nine mild cases and found that live viruses could not be grown from throat swabs or sputum samples eight days after symptoms started.
    — Lois Parshley, National Geographic, 3 June 2020
  • To do that, technicians first extract any genetic information from the throat swabs and sputum samples.
    — Arman Azad, CNN, 4 Mar. 2020
  • Symptoms include a bad cough lasting for longer than three weeks, pain in the chest, coughing up blood or sputum, fatigue, loss of weight, loss of appetite, chills, fever and sweating at night.
    — Taylor Pettaway, San Antonio Express-News, 9 Dec. 2022
  • Technicians can ask a patient to cough up phlegm, known as sputum, but doing so substantially raises the risk of infecting health care workers.
    — Lydia Depillis, ProPublica, 10 Apr. 2020
  • Collection and analysis of their sputum did yield, however, the parasitic eggs that provided an end to the mystery.
    — Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 27 Dec. 2014
  • The respiratory specimen can be obtained through the sputum.
    — Katia Hetter, CNN Money, 4 Sep. 2025
  • This study broke new ground in examining lung tissue instead of sputum or bronchial washing, and using a technique to identify each cell in a tissue sample.
    — Julie Washington, cleveland, 3 May 2021
  • But now, experts know that the bacteria live in thick mucus called sputum in a person’s lower respiratory system—the lower throat and lungs.
    — Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Feb. 2020
  • Diagnostic tests for the infection are not sensitive and mostly rely on sputum, which many sick people struggle to produce.
    — Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times, 23 Sep. 2019
  • The smell of purulent sputum incubating deep within a lung may waft its way up the bronchial tree, resulting in serious halitosis.
    — H Lee Kagan, Discover Magazine, 13 Mar. 2011
  • The ancients of Greece and China confirmed tuberculosis by tossing a patient’s sputum onto hot coals and smelling the fumes.
    — Scott Sayare Robert Petkoff Anna Diamond Quinton Kamara, New York Times, 14 June 2024
  • Included in their rather diverse diet is their consumption of human detritus such as feces, sputum, toe nails, and bodily residue on surgical swabs.
    — Rebecca Kreston, Discover Magazine, 9 May 2012
  • Typically, the choice of antibiotics is guided by culturing a sputum sample and testing it against a variety of antibiotics to see which will kill the bugs that have grown in the culture.
    — Judy Stone, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2025
  • For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, higher temperatures also seem to cause more coughing, breathlessness, and sputum production among such patients.
    — Dhruv Khullar, The New Yorker, 25 July 2022
  • When a lower respiratory infection (such as viral pneumonia) is suspected, the healthcare provider may ask for a sputum specimen.
    — Sherry Christiansen Updated, Verywell Health, 3 Aug. 2023
  • Testing for possible coronavirus involved a nasal and mouth swab, blood sample and lower respiratory sputum sample, Bailer said.
    — Julie Washington, cleveland, 3 Feb. 2020
  • After a few hours in the chamber, the study participants gave sputum samples, which helped researchers identify those who were sensitive to the fumes and exactly how their airways and lungs were being affected.
    — Linda Carroll, TIME, 30 May 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sputum.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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