womb
Meanings
- In female mammals, the organ in which the young are conceived and grow until birth; the uterus.
- The abdomen or stomach.
- The stomach of a person or creature.
- A place where something is made or formed.
- Any cavity containing and enveloping anything.
- To enclose in a womb, or as if in a womb; to breed or hold in secret.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English wombe, wambe, from Old English womb, wamb (“belly, stomach; bowels; heart; womb; hollow”), from Proto-West Germanic *wambu, from Proto-Germanic *wambō (“belly, stomach, abdomen”). Cognate with Scots wam, wame (“womb”), Dutch wam (“dewlap of beef; belly of a fish”), German Wamme, Wampe (“paunch, belly”), Danish vom (“belly, paunch, rumen”), Swedish våmb (“belly, stomach, rumen”), Norwegian vom (“rumen”), Icelandic vömb (“belly, abdomen, stomach”), Old Welsh gumbelauc (“womb”), Breton gwamm (“woman, wife”), Sanskrit वपा (vapā́, “the skin or membrane lining the intestines or parts of the viscera, the caul or omentum”). Superseded nonnative Middle English mater, matere (“womb”), and matris, matrice (“womb”) borrowed from Latin māter (“womb”) and Old French matrice (“womb”), respectively.