A Scottish and Northern English dialect word meaning to retch, heave, or attempt to vomit.
From Old English and Middle English, possibly related to Middle Low German or Scandinavian sources. The exact origin is uncertain, but it's been used in dialect for centuries.
Scottish dialect words like 'bowk' are pure phonetic onomatopoeia—the word literally sounds like the action it describes, which is probably why it survived so long in regional speech!
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