Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The mouth, stomach, jaws, or gullet of a voracious animal, especially a carnivore.
- noun The opening into something felt to be insatiable.
from The Century Dictionary.
- A dialectal (Scotch) form of
mow . - noun The stomach: now used of human beings only in contempt, and rarely of animals.
- noun The crop or craw of a fowl.
- noun The sound or air-bladder of a fish.
- noun Stomach; appetite; inclination.
- noun A dialectal (Scotch) form of
mew . - noun An old game at cards, played with a piquet pack of thirty-six cards by any number of persons from two to six.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An old game at cards.
- noun A stomach; the receptacle into which food is taken by swallowing; in birds, the craw; -- now used only of the lower animals, exept humorously or in contempt.
- noun obsolete Appetite; inclination.
- noun (Zoöl.) See under
Fish . - noun (Zoöl.) A gull.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun dialect, colloquial Mother.
- noun archaic the
stomach , especially of an animal - noun the upper
digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially themouth andjaws of aravenous creature. - noun any great,
insatiable orperilous opening .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun informal terms for the mouth
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word maw.
Examples
-
His maw was the only one heard him walk the floor nights, and after he found, out she could hear him he walked in his socks.
In the Arena Stories of Political Life Booth Tarkington 1907
-
To do this is called maw-pak, and hence the game gets its name, maw-pak bae-ang.
Through Central Borneo; an Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters Between the Years 1913 and 1917 Carl Lumholtz 1886
-
To rebuke the seed is to forbid its growing. your -- literally, "for you"; that is, to your hurt. dung of ... solemn feasts -- The dung in the maw of the victims sacrificed on the feast days; the maw was the perquisite of the priests
-
Ah! that one has got hold of a tiny shrimp, and is tucking it into his hungry maw, which is just in the middle of its flower-like body.
Ernest Bracebridge School Days William Henry Giles Kingston 1847
-
Maw might be a bit archaic nowadays; in the Anglo-Saxon leechbooks "maw" seems to refer to the stomach more than the mouth, though I take it to mean the digestive tract from mouth to stomach.
Archive 2005-12-01 Richard Nokes 2005
-
Maw might be a bit archaic nowadays; in the Anglo-Saxon leechbooks "maw" seems to refer to the stomach more than the mouth, though I take it to mean the digestive tract from mouth to stomach.
More on Maugrim Richard Nokes 2005
-
First he transferred Eddie's ammunition to his own person, and such valuables and trinkets as he thought "maw" might be glad to have, then he removed the breechblock from
The Mucker Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912
-
If a man wants to be famous, he had much better try the advertising doctor than the terrible editor, whose waste-basket is a maw which is as insatiable as the temporary stomach of Jack the
Over the Teacups Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851
-
If a man wants to be famous, he had much better try the advertising doctor than the terrible editor, whose waste-basket is a maw which is as insatiable as the temporary stomach of Jack the Giant-killer.
Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851
-
Hmmm. Crystal would receive points (if a point system had been used in the judging) for her use of the word 'maw'.
Lust Bites 2008
-
Consumers in Asia, particularly southern China, know this commodity as fish maw and covet it as a culinary delicacy, a traditional medicine and a symbol of prosperity.
‘Cocaine of the seas’ — how a luxury food is wreaking ecological mayhem Jo Chandler 2024
chained_bear commented on the word maw
I like this word best when used with gaping, as a synonym for the opening through which food is taken in and vocalizations emerge. Otherwise known as piehole.
August 27, 2008
bilby commented on the word maw
You'd probably like Gaping Maws then.
June 8, 2009
madmouth commented on the word maw
bilby, how could you?
June 8, 2009
bilby commented on the word maw
Penguins make the bravest dentists.
June 8, 2009
dontcry commented on the word maw
*maw agape*
June 8, 2009
WanderlustDreamer commented on the word maw
"Through a window, an open coking furnace, a 20 foot high maw of fire, appeared to sail by." NYTimes article "A Ukraine Factory that Can't Close and Workers who Won't Quit" on 25March2015
March 25, 2015