abdomen

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French abdomen, recorded in 1537 in the French text that the first English quotation translates, and partly a direct borrowing of its source, borrowed from Latin abdōmen (“belly, paunch; the fat underpart of an animal”).^[2][3][4] Barnhart dates the borrowing from Latin to 1601, with an earlier record of 1541 in a translation from French.^[5] The Latin word was used of the fat underpart of the body in animals and of the belly or paunch in humans.^[2][3] Its origin is unknown.^[2][6][7] An old explanation derives it from abdō (“to stow away, conceal”), formed from ab- (“away”) and a verb element going back to Proto-Indo-European *dhē- (“to put, place”), so that the word would first have meant the hidden part of the body;^{[8][5][9][10]} Johnson and Weekley gave this derivation without doubt.^[11][12] The OED thinks it may be only a popular etymology and considers a borrowing from a non-Indo-European language more likely,^[2] and Etymonline reports that de Vaan finds the derivation unfounded.^[9] The word was borrowed into other languages at about the same time: Spanish abdomen is recorded before 1560, Portuguese abdomen in 1661 and Italian addome in 1712.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The belly, the part of the trunk between the chest and the pelvis: in Robert Copland's translation of Galen's Fourth Boke of Terapeutyke, perhaps 1541, where the French article is still fused to the word.^[2] Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford give the first sense as the fat or meat of the belly, now obsolete.^[9][6]

Semantic evolution

The early sense "fat round the belly" lasted from the mid 16th to the late 17th century;^[6] the OED's only clear record of it is in E. Coles's dictionary of 1676.^[2] The anatomical sense, the part of the body between the diaphragm and the pelvis, became established from the early 17th century.^[6][9] In 1648, in Herrick's Hesperides, the word was first applied to the rear division of the body of an insect or other arthropod;^[2] Etymonline dates this zoological sense to 1725.^[9] Johnson (1755) defined it as the cavity commonly called the lower belly, containing the stomach, guts, liver, spleen and bladder.^[11] He traced the word to a Latin verb meaning to hide.^[11] The adjective abdominal followed in 1746, from New Latin.^[5]

Timeline

• ?1541 – the belly, in Copland's translation of Galen.^[2][5]
• 1601 – Barnhart's date for the borrowing from Latin.^[5]
• 1610s – the part of the body between the diaphragm and the pelvis.^[9]
• 1648 – the rear division of the body of an arthropod.^[2]
• 1676 – fat deposited around the kidneys or in the belly (obsolete).^[2]
• 1746 – the adjective abdominal.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. In humans and other vertebrates, the part of the body between the thorax and the pelvis, which holds the stomach, intestines and other organs; the belly: He felt a sharp pain in his abdomen after the meal.^[3][7][2]
2. The cavity of this part of the body, lined by the peritoneum.^[3][6]
3. The front or surface of this region.^[7]
4. In insects and other arthropods, the rear section of the body, behind the thorax.^[7][2]
5. (obsolete, mid 16th–late 17th century) Fat around the belly or the kidneys.^[6][2]

Word family

• abdominal
• abdominally
• postabdomen

Related words

• abdominous
• belly

Usage notes

The first edition of the OED (1884) gave only the pronunciation with stress on the second syllable; stress on the first syllable is recorded from the Century Dictionary (1889) and D. Jones's pronouncing dictionary (1917) on.^[2] The plural is usually abdomens, less often abdomina after the Latin plural.^[3][2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray