Puke

At 50-years-old, barf is a newbie compared to puke, which erupted into our language in the late 1500s. In fact, William Shakespeare wrote of “puke-stockings” in King Henry the Fourth—but that puke is different than today’s liquid projectile. In 1598, puke was the English form of a Dutch word for “the best grade of cloth.” So “puke-stockings” weren’t the equivalent of barf bags; they were just really nice socks.

Two years after the puke socks hit the cobblestone market, Shakespeare used puking in As You Like It. This time, puke meant “vomit.” Either the word came into being as an imitation of what it sounds like when people spew, or it derives from the Dutch word spugen, meaning “to spit.”