to vomit or throw up the contents of your stomach, usually suddenly and unpleasantly.
Originated in the 1960s as American slang, likely imitative in nature—the word sounds like the noise itself. It may derive from a combination of 'barfle' or similar onomatopoetic terms.
Barf is a fascinating example of onomatopoeia that became so popular it actually replaced older, more formal medical terms in everyday speech. Language evolves from the ground up, and slang words that capture the right feeling—literally sounding like what they describe—can take over whole cultures.
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