Wiktionary

maw

See also: Maw, MAW, maw-, and mąw-

English edit

WOTD – 8 July 2012

Pronunciation edit

Etymology 1 edit

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 edit

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.
  1. (slang, derogatory) The mouth.
    Synonyms: trap, yap
    Shut your maw!
  2. Any large, insatiable or perilous opening.
    • 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.
    • 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.
  3. Appetite; inclination.
  4. The swim bladder of a fish, especially when used as food in Chinese cuisine.
    • 1998, Charles Gordon Sinclair, International Dictionary of Food and Cooking, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 203:
      fish maw: The buoyancy bladder of a fish similar in appearance to the mammalian lung. The maw of the conger pike is used in Chinese cooking and is usually sold in dried form which needs reconstituting for about 3 hours and treating with […]
    • 2009 April 28, Teresa M. Chen, A Tradition of Soup: Flavors from China's Pearl River Delta, North Atlantic Books, →ISBN, page 70:
      Fish maw is the commercial term for the dried swim bladders of large fish like sturgeon. Fish maw has no fishy taste and absorbs the flavors of other ingredients.
    • 2010 08, Eddie Dowd, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Fertility Treatment, Paragon Publishing, →ISBN, page 150:
      Fish maw (swim bladder) is easily obtainable from your local fishmonger[.]
    • 2020 May 12, K. Gopakumar, Balagopal Gopakumar, Health Foods from Ocean Animals, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 172:
      [...] fish maw is light, white in color, and has a spongy texture. Dried fish maw is tasteless which makes it a good complementary addition to many dishes since it can absorb the flavors of other ingredients when it is cooked with other food […]
Derived terms edit
Translations edit

Etymology 2 edit

By shortening of mother

Noun edit

maw (plural maws)

  1. (dialect, colloquial) Mother.

Etymology 3 edit

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

Noun edit

maw (plural maws)

  1. A gull.

See also edit

Anagrams edit

Abinomn edit

Noun edit

maw

  1. butterfly

Cornish edit

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

maw m (plural mebyon)

  1. boy
    Me a wrug desky Kernowak termyn me ve maw.
    I learnt Cornish when I was a boy.

Synonyms edit

Khasi edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From Proto-Khasian *smaːw, from Proto-Austroasiatic *t2mɔʔ (“stone”). Cognate with Vietnamese đá, Mon တၟံ, Nyah Kur ฮมอ, Khmer ថ្ម (thmɑɑ), Eastern Bru tamaw, Bahnar tơmo, Parauk simaw.[1]

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

maw m

  1. rock, stone

Derived terms edit

References edit

  1. ^ Shorto, Harry (2006) Sidwell, Paul, Doug Cooper and Christian Bauer, editors, A Mon-Khmer Comparative Dictionary, Canberra: Australian National University. Pacific Linguistics, →ISBN
  • Singh, U Nissor (1906) Khasi-English dictionary‎[2], Shillong: Eastern Bengal and Assam Secretariat Press, page 130. Searchable online at SEAlang.net.

Mapudungun edit

Noun edit

maw (Unified spelling)

  1. rain

Middle English edit

Noun edit

maw

  1. Alternative form of mawe (“stomach”)

Somali edit

Etymology edit

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 edit

maw m (plural mawooyin m)

  1. water container, water-jar

References edit

  • Puglielli, Annarita, Mansuur, Cabdalla Cumar (2012) “ma'wi”, in Qaamuuska Af-Soomaliga‎[3], Rome: RomaTrE-Press, →ISBN, page 613
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