Definitions

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

  • noun The belly, especially a protruding one; a potbelly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To pierce or rip the belly of; stick or stab in the belly; eviscerate.
  • To fill the paunch of; stuff with food.
  • noun The belly; the abdomen.
  • noun Specifically, in zoology, the rumen. See cut under ruminant.
  • noun Nautical
  • noun Same as paunce, 2.

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

  • transitive verb To pierce or rip the belly of; to eviscerate; to disembowel.
  • transitive verb obsolete To stuff with food.
  • noun (Anat.) The belly and its contents; the abdomen; also, the first stomach, or rumen, of ruminants. See rumen.
  • noun (Naut.) A paunch mat; -- called also panch.
  • noun The thickened rim of a bell, struck by the clapper.
  • noun A noticeably protruding belly; a potbelly.
  • noun (Naut.) a thick mat made of strands of rope, used to prevent the yard or rigging from chafing.

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

  • noun The first stomach of a ruminant, the rumen.
  • noun The abdomen or belly of a human or animal, especially a large, protruding one.
  • noun nautical A paunch mat.
  • verb To remove the internal organs of a ruminant, such as a hare or rabbit prior to eating.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a protruding abdomen

Etymologies

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

[Middle English paunche, from Old French panche, from Latin pantex.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the French pance from pancier meaning breastplate as worn by the Black Rider(s) or Polish Pan Czerny of late medieval Poland.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Not that I have one, of course....

    April 14, 2007