stomach

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈstʌm.ək/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English stomak, borrowed from Old French estomac, stomaque,^[2][3][4] from Latin stomachus (“throat, gullet; stomach; taste, liking; pride, indignation”),^[2][3] from Ancient Greek στόμαχος (stómakhos, “throat, gullet; opening”), from στόμα (stóma, “mouth”).^[2][3][5] The native word is maw.^[2] It is related to stoma.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The internal pouch of the body in which food is digested: before 1325 in Barnhart, the early 14th century in Etymonline.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word already had the figurative senses of courage, pride, indignation and ill will,^[7] and they came into English too: appetite about 1386,^[3] the seat of feelings in the 16th century, and courage, pride or anger, which Trench noted had nearly or quite gone by 1859.^[5][7] The belly or abdomen is from about 1375.^[8] The spelling of the ending was conformed to Latin from the 16th century, but the pronunciation stayed as in Middle English.^[2][3] The verb at first meant to be offended at or resent (1523), echoing Latin stomachārī “to be angry”,^[3][2] and the sense “to put up with, endure”, probably from digestion, is from the 1570s in Etymonline and 1677 in Barnhart.^[2][3]

Timeline

• a. 1325 – the digestive organ.^[3]
• c. 1375 – the belly.^[8]
• c. 1386 – appetite.^[3]
• 1523 – verb, to resent.^[3]
• 1570s – to tolerate.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The organ in which food is stored and partly digested after being swallowed.
2. The front of the body below the chest; the abdomen or belly.
3. Desire or appetite: no stomach for a fight.

Verb

1. To put up with or tolerate something unpleasant.
2. (archaic) To resent.

Word family

• stomachache
• stomacher
• stomachy
• tummy
• honey stomach
• stomach pump
• stomach sweetbread
• stomach worm

Related words

• stomachic
• stoma
• maw

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
8. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press