This noun denotes vomit—what has been expelled from the stomach. Proverbs 26:11 uses it in a memorable and grotesque comparison: 'As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.' The image is deliberately repulsive to emphasize the fool's senseless return to destructive behavior. Just as a dog's return to its vomit is nauseating and irrational, so is the fool's repetition of folly. The proverb became proverbial itself, quoted in 2 Peter 2:22 to describe false teachers returning to their former ways.