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maw

Pronunciation: /mɔː/

The English word “maw” has 10 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The upper digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially the mouth and jaws of an animal.
  2. The mouth and jaws of a furry.
  3. The mouth.
  4. Any large, insatiable or perilous opening.
  5. Appetite; inclination.
  6. The swim bladder of a fish, especially when used as food in Chinese cuisine.
  7. The stomach, especially of an animal.
  8. Mother.
  9. A gull.
  10. A person from a rural area of the Isle of Lewis, i.e. outwith Stornoway; a country bumpkin.

Etymology

From Middle English mawe, maghe, maȝe, from Old English maga (“stomach; maw”), from Proto-West Germanic *magō, from Proto-Germanic *magô (“belly; stomach”), from Proto-Indo-European *mak-, *maks- (“bag, bellows, belly”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian mage, Dutch maag (“stomach; belly”), German Low German Maag, German Magen (“stomach”), Danish mave, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.