maw

See also: Maw, MAW, maw-, and mąw-

English

WOTD – 8 July 2012

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /mɔː/
• (US) IPA^(key): /mɔ/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /mɑ/
• Homophones: MAW, more (non-rhotic accents)
• Rhymes: -ɔː

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Etymology 1

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 mage (“stomach”), Swedish mage (“stomach; belly”), and also with Welsh megin (“bellows”), archaic Russian мошна́ (mošná, “pocket, bag”), Lithuanian mãkas (“purse”).

Noun

maw (plural maws)

1. (archaic) The stomach, especially of an animal.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     So Death shall be deceav'd his glut, and with us two / Be forc'd to satisfie his Rav'nous Maw.

2. The upper digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially the mouth and jaws of a fearsome and ravenous creature.
   • 1818, John Keats, “(please specify the page)”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] [T. Miller] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC:

     To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 9, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     “I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there; Which none but they that feel can tell— Oh, I was plunging to despair.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 23:

     Adam requires a touch of feminine lace and a whisper of diaphanous silk, not a direct vision of the gaping maw of the human vulva.

3. (slang, derogatory) The mouth.

   Synonyms: trap, yap

   Shut your maw!

   • 1920, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “The Escape”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 273:

     She fumbled with her bag, and produced from its little maw a scented handkerchief.

4. Any large, insatiable or perilous opening.
   • 2011 October 11, “Jumping Jack Flash (Live 1973)” (track 14), in Brussels Affair (Live 1973)‎^[1], performed by The Rolling Stones:

     One two! I was born in a cross-fire hurricane. And I howled at the maw in the drivin' rain. But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas. But it's all right. I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash. It's a gas, gas, gas.

5. Appetite; inclination.
   • 1607 (first performance), Francis Beaumont, “The Knight of the Burning Pestle”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, Act I, scene i:

     Unless you had more maw to do me good.

Derived terms

• hog maw
• maw-gut
• maw-worm

 

Translations

stomach

• Azerbaijani: qursaq (az), qarın (az)
• Bulgarian: сирище n (sirište)
• Catalan: estómac (ca) m
• Dutch: pens (nl), maag (nl)
• Finnish: maha (fi)
• German: Magen (de) m
• Japanese: 第四胃 (dai yon i)
• Persian: گده‎ (fa) (gade)
• Portuguese: estômago (pt), bucho (pt) m
• Russian: брю́хо (ru) n (brjúxo)
• Spanish: estómago (es)
• Swedish: mage (sv) c
• Tagalog: labot
• Turkish: karın (tr)

upper digestive tract

• Armenian: երախ (hy) (erax)
• Bulgarian: паст f (past)
• Czech: chřtán (cs) m, jícen (cs) m, tlama (cs) f
• Finnish: kita (fi)
• French: gueule (fr) f
• German: Schlund (de) m, Rachen (de) m
• Italian: fauci (it) f pl
• Russian: пасть (ru) f (pastʹ)
• Scottish Gaelic: sgròban m
• Spanish: fauces (es) f pl
• Swedish: gap (sv) n
• Tagalog: butse

any great, insatiable or perilous opening

• Czech: chřtán (cs) m, jícen (cs) m, tlama (cs) f
• Esperanto: faŭko (eo) sg
• German: Schlund (de) m
• Serbo-Croatian: ždrijelo (sh) n
• Swedish: gap (sv) n

Etymology 2

By shortening of mother

Noun

maw (plural maws)

1. (dialect, colloquial) Mother.

Etymology 3

See mew (“a gull”), Norwegian måke (“a gull”)

Noun

maw (plural maws)

1. A gull.

See also

• mee-maw

Anagrams

• WMA, awm, mwa

Abinomn

Noun

maw

1. butterfly

Cornish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mæʊ/

Noun

maw m

1. boy

   Me a wrug desky Kernowak termyn me ve maw.

   I learnt Cornish when I was a boy.

Synonyms

• mab

Mapudungun

Noun

maw (Unified spelling)

1. rain

Middle English

Noun

maw

1. Alternative form of mawe (“stomach”)

Somali

Etymology

From Proto-Cushitic *ma?-/*miʔ- (to be wet) from Proto-Afroasiatic *maʔ-. Compare Egyptian mw, Aasax maʔa, also Dahalo maʔa; Hebrew מים‎ (máyim),
Classical Syriac ܡܝܐ‎ (mayyā) and Somali maanyo and Somali ma'wi.

Noun

maw m (plural mawooyin m)

1. water container, water-jar

References

• Puglielli, Annarita; Mansuur, Cabdalla Cumar (2012), “ma'wi”, in Qaamuuska Af-Soomaliga, Rome: RomaTrE-Press, →ISBN, page 613