cough and a spit

cough and a spit

English

Noun

a cough and a spit

1. (film, theater) A minor role.
   • 1992, Film Review (page 6)

     Ray Wise managed his back-to-black-hair role before joining Tim Robbins in Bob Roberts and James Marshall squeezed in his cough and a spit between Gladiator and joining the big boys (Nicholson, Cruise) in A Few Good Men […]

   • 1998, Ken Whitmore, ‎Alfred Bradley, The Final Twist: A Play (page 20)

     Everybody gargling madly and mugging up their lines as though Shakespeare himself was out front. Don't know why I bothered, I only had a cough and a spit.

2. (Britain, colloquial) A very short distance.
   • 2009, David Fiddimore, The Forgotten War (page 5)

     […] a Lancaster squadron at Bawne, west of Cambridge — it sits a cough and a spit from the Bedfordshire border.

   • 2013, Russell Cruse, The Rothko Room (page 258)

     […] Stockwell, a cough and a spit from Vauxhall Cross.