stomach
Americannoun
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stomachs
plural
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Anatomy, Zoology.
-
a saclike enlargement of the alimentary canal, as in humans and certain animals, forming an organ for storing, diluting, and digesting food.
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such an organ or an analogous portion of the alimentary canal when divided into two or more sections or parts.
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any one of these sections.
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Zoology. any analogous digestive cavity or tract in invertebrates.
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the part of the body containing the stomach; belly or abdomen.
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appetite for food.
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desire, inclination, or liking.
I have no stomach for this trip.
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Obsolete.
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spirit; courage.
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pride; haughtiness.
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resentment; anger.
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verb (used with object)
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stomachs,
present (3rd person singular)
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stomached,
past participle, past
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stomaching
present participle
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to endure or tolerate (someone or something).
I can't stomach your constant nagging.
- Synonyms:
- countenance, abide, stand, bear
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Obsolete. to be offended at or resent.
noun
-
(in vertebrates) the enlarged muscular saclike part of the alimentary canal in which food is stored until it has been partially digested and rendered into chyme
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the corresponding digestive organ in invertebrates
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the abdominal region
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desire, appetite, or inclination
I have no stomach for arguments
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an archaic word for temper
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an obsolete word for pride
verb
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to tolerate; bear
I can't stomach his bragging
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to eat or digest
he cannot stomach oysters
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
stomachsimple
-
stomachssimple
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have stomachedperfect
-
has stomachedperfect
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am stomachingprogressive
-
are stomachingprogressive
-
is stomachingprogressive
-
have been stomachingperfect progressive
-
has been stomachingperfect progressive
Past
-
stomachedsimple
-
had stomachedperfect
-
was stomachingprogressive
-
were stomachingprogressive
-
had been stomachingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stomach
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English stomak, from Latin stomachus “gullet, stomach,” from Greek stómachos originally, “opening”; akin to stoma
Explanation
The stomach is the organ of your body — kind of a big sac — that digests food. We also say people have a stomach for something unpleasant when they can handle it. Without a stomach, you'd be in trouble: that's where your food gets digested and turned into useful material your body can use for energy. If you ever got punched in the stomach or had a stomach ache, it can hurt a lot. Also, stomach can mean having a hunger, or at least tolerance, for something. If you can't stomach watching football, then you can't stand watching it. If you have a stomach for something, you can swallow it.
Vocabulary lists containing stomach
Nutrition and Digestion - Introductory
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Nutrition and Digestion - High School
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Nutrition and Digestion - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In the last decades of the 19th century, the reach and strength of the SP’s power — and the abuse of it — became too much for Californians to stomach.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026
Pavord said iron tablets are best taken on an empty stomach, ideally first thing in the morning, and advised avoiding tea or coffee around the time they are taken because they can inhibit iron absorption.
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026
Whether that path eventually ends with an annuity will depend on whether the retirement industry and consumers find a bridge to get the protection people want into a product they can stomach.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026
In Eleanor’s camera, Sofia has that same impish desire, taking on a film so gargantuan that she can’t possibly understand that her eyes are bigger than her stomach.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026
The three small bites I take fall like rocks to the pit of my stomach.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
Dan Turner, coordinator at North East England Beached Bird Surveys said: "We've already seen samples from contents of stomachs of suspected regurgitation which contain nurdles."
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
He wanted it to be easier to clean up when players dug so deep that they emptied their stomachs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
The chief vet of Kenya's Wildlife Service, Dr Isaac Lekolool, told us that they had found traces of cyanide in samples taken from the elephants' stomachs.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
Though gone from the stomachs of people in the industrialised world, the bacteria has been detected among tribes in Africa and South America, Sarhan said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
Only their scratching pens, kids' stomachs, flies entombed in the strip lights, and distant cries of free kids ruckled the silence.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Venture-capital firms have stomached vast losses in part because OpenAI and Anthropic are among the fastest-growing businesses in the history of tech.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 6, 2026
And the Pac-12 championship defeat to the Utes could be easily stomached due to Williams’ hamstring injury which limited his transcendence for one half.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2023
McDonald's engineered a relatively smooth sale to Govor for an undisclosed fee, but stomached a non-cash charge of $1.4 billion and forfeited $300 million in annual operating income.
From Reuters ● Dec. 16, 2022
If they had, I could have stomached it more,” said Jill Roberts, who co-owns a wine bar in downtown Helena, Mont. “It came out of left field.”
From New York Times ● May 15, 2021
And the royalty would be a weak stomached lot if they gained not even extra corn for all their sceptre waving, and royal nods;––eh?
From The Flute of the Gods by Marah Ellis Ryan
Yet many workers aren’t so sure; they’re having a hard time stomaching the uncertainty.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 10, 2026
Investing in an IPO means stomaching the potential for volatility in early trading.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
While Ms Bannister is stomaching her new bill, and Ms Martin is going without healthcare, others are resorting to different government programmes to get their coverage.
From BBC ● Jan. 1, 2026
A heavy reliance on three-true-outcome hitters — players who hit home runs and accumulate walks while stomaching a once-nauseating amount of strikeouts — became the preeminent offensive formula to win regular-season games for different reasons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 22, 2023
The local returns of dead rats were not made by the bills of mortality, but by the bills of fare: it was getting rid of a nuisance by the unheard-of process of stomaching a nuisance!
From Rambles Beyond Railways; or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot by Wilkie Collins
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
