Etymologically
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womb

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wombe, also wambe,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English wamb, also womb, belly, womb,[5][6][7][8] inherited from Proto-Germanic *wambō (“womb, belly”),[9][10][4] a Germanic word of unknown origin.[4][6][11] It is cognate with Old Frisian wamme, Old Dutch wamba, Old Saxon wamba, Middle Dutch wamme, Dutch wam, Old High German wamba, German Wamme, Old Norse vǫmb and Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌼𐌱𐌰 (wamba, “belly, womb”), most of which mean "belly" rather than "uterus".[12][9][6][13] Klein and Etymonline relate it to umbor (“child”),[3][4] a comparison that goes back to Holthausen, but Kroonen objects that the reconstruction this implies would have given a different Germanic form; he finds a link with a Sanskrit word for the vagina more attractive.[9] Orel takes it as a descriptive stem like Lithuanian bámba (“navel”).[10] The Scots and northern form is wame.[11][14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The belly or abdomen, and also the uterus: both before 830, in the Vespasian Psalter.[12][7]

Semantic evolution

In Old English wamb was the belly of a person or animal, the stomach as the seat of hunger and gluttony, the bowels and even the chest, as well as the uterus.[12][4][5] Trench notes that the word could once be used of both sexes: the Wycliffite Bible has the prodigal son wanting to "fille his wombe of the coddis that the hoggis eeten".[16][13] The other senses died out between the 15th and 18th centuries (the belly in 1684, the stomach in 1756),[12] leaving the uterus as the only current meaning.[4][12] Fruit of the womb, children, is found from the late 13th century.[4] From about 1400 the word was used figuratively of a place where something is formed or develops,[12][4] and already in an Old English riddle of any enclosing hollow.[12] The phrase from the womb to the tomb is recorded from 1576, and womb-to-tomb as an adjective from 1947.[12] In Scotland and Yorkshire womb still meant the belly in the 19th century.[15] The verb, to enclose as in a womb, dates from 1557.[12][2]

Timeline

  • before 830 – wamb, the belly; the uterus.[12][7]
  • c. 1175 – Middle English wombe.[7]
  • c. 1400 – a place where something originates or develops.[12]
  • 1557 – verb, to enclose as in a womb.[12][2]
  • 1576 – from the womb to the tomb.[12]
  • 1684 – last record of the sense belly.[12]
  • 1947 – womb-to-tomb, lasting a whole lifetime.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The uterus, the organ in which offspring develop before birth.[17][2][12]
  2. A hollow space that encloses and shelters something, especially one that is dark or warm.[17][2][12]
  3. A place where something is conceived or develops: The port city was the womb of the new trade.[17][2][12]
  4. (obsolete, Old English–1684) The belly.[17][2][12]

Verb

  1. To enclose as if in a womb.[2][12]

Word family

  • wombed
  • enwomb
  • unwomb
  • gambeson
  • wame

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  9. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
  17. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins