A sudden, involuntary contraction of the diaphragm muscle that causes you to make a short, sharp sound; also spelled hiccup.
From Middle English 'hickop,' an imitative word meant to sound like the actual hiccup noise. The 'ough' was added later by false analogy with words like 'thorough' and 'borough.'
The spelling 'hiccough' is a linguistic accident—someone added 'ough' thinking it looked more scholarly, and now we're stuck with both versions competing. English spelling is full of these historical mistakes!
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