Origin and history of spew

Middle English speuen, "vomit, throw up, spit or cough up," also figurative, from Old English spiwan "spew, spit," from Proto-Germanic *spiewan- (source also of Old Saxon spiwan, Old Norse spyja, Old Frisian spiwa, Middle Dutch spijen, Dutch spuwen, Old High German spiwan, German speien, Gothic spiewan "to spit"), probably of imitative origin (compare Latin spuere; Greek ptuein, Doric psyttein; Old Church Slavonic pljuja, Russian plevati; Lithuanian spiauti).

Also in Old English as a weak verb, speowan, spiwian; the weak form predominated from Middle English. The general sense of "eject or cast out as if by vomiting" is by 1590s. The intransitive sense is by 1660s. Related: Spewed; spewing.

c. 1600, "vomited matter, that which is cast up from the stomach," from spew (v.).