Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The portion of the abdomen behind the petiole in ants and other hymenopterous insects.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The stomach; the belly or abdomen: rarely used alone, but entering into many compounds and derivatives referring to the stomach, abdomen, or abdominal organs, or a part likened thereto.
  • noun In certain hymenopterous insects, such as ants (Formicidæ), the abdomen exclusive of the stem, or pedicel.
  • To frighten; scare.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To gast.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the stomach
  • noun the part of the abdomen behind the petiole in hymenopterous insects

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek gastēr, belly.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin gaster, Ancient Greek γαστήρ (gastêr)

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Examples

  • Hmm, a gaster government might come from having a family relation, maybe a brother, swing an election to the favor of the family by using local influence to stifle the opposition.

    Think Progress » Blackburn Won’t Endorse Bachmann’s ‘Gangster Government’ Rhetoric 2010

  • When alive, the spiders kept on the gaster-only diet initially grew but then shriveled, while those eating the head, legs and thoraces thrived, with some tripling their weight.

    Why Spiders Always Devour Ants Head First | Impact Lab 2010

  • Prowse approached; as acting-gaster his station in battle was on the quarter-reck beside his captain.

    Hornblower And The Hotspur Forester, C. S. 1962

  • At Bush's shoulder stood Prowse, the acting-gaster, senior master's mate with an acting-garrant.

    Hornblower And The Hotspur Forester, C. S. 1962

  • Metagaster: the secondary or permanent gut (gaster).

    The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel 1876

  • _Gastric_: (From the Greek [Transliterated: gasths], _gaster_, the belly,) belonging or relating to the belly, or stomach.

    American Woman's Home Harriet Beecher Stowe 1853

  • _Gastric_, (from the Greek [Greek: gastir], _gaster_, the belly,) belonging or relating to the belly, or stomach.

    A Treatise on Domestic Economy For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School Catharine Esther Beecher 1839

  • Head and thorax are deep brown with gaster and legs are dense or milky white

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows delabayan 2009

  • For example, if you could enlarge a one-centimeter-long ant so that its gaster (tail) extended over downtown Seattle and its antennae hung over Mount Rainier, a strand of ant DNA would be about two centimeters in diameter-about as wide as a US nickel.

    Symbolcraft 2008

  • For example, if you could enlarge a one-centimeter-long ant so that its gaster (tail) extended over downtown Seattle and its antennae hung over Mount Rainier, a strand of ant DNA would be about two centimeters in diameter-about as wide as a US nickel.

    Symbolcraft 2008

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