paunchy
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- paunchiness noun
Etymology
Origin of paunchy
Explanation
Someone who's paunchy has a round belly. If you're more paunchy than you used to be, you might want to invest in slightly larger, more comfortable clothes. This adjective is often used in a mildly derogatory way, to describe someone who carries a bit of extra weight around their middle. Has your vet put your dog on a diet? It might be because she's gotten a little paunchy. The word comes from paunch, "round stomach," from a root that simply means "belly or stomach."
Vocabulary lists containing paunchy
"Rosa Parks" by Nikki Giovanni
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Dear Justyce
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"The Silent Season of a Hero" by Gay Talese
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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.
At exercise time, a crowd gathered in the prison yard -- young and old, slender and paunchy, all with shaved heads.
From Barron's • Jan. 30, 2026
The Sycamores were the No. 1 seed in the NIT and drew a national following drawn in by the paunchy goggles-wearing leading scorer Robbie Avila, nicknamed “Cream Abdul-Jabbar.”
From Seattle Times • Apr. 6, 2024
A paunchy, bespectacled, depressed widower with back pain, Farrell oozes melancholy as he checks into a hotel where he hopes to make a love match in 45 days or be turned into the titular animal.
From Salon • Mar. 10, 2023
There were meaty, hulking types and paunchy types and hard femme types like the “Pose” actor Jason A. Rodriguez.
From New York Times • Mar. 22, 2022
Walking across the train station’s vast parking lot, he seemed oblivious to the stream of grim, paunchy commuters on their way into the city.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Definitions 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.
