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
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(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
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stomachsimple
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stomachssimple
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have stomachedperfect
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has stomachedperfect
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am stomachingprogressive
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are stomachingprogressive
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is stomachingprogressive
-
have been stomachingperfect progressive
-
has been stomachingperfect progressive
Past
-
stomachedsimple
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had stomachedperfect
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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:
Several of our guests had an eye for what Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, calls “option-value investing,” and the stomach to withstand the turbulence associated with it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Salmonella infection could result in diarrhea, nausea, headache and stomach cramps.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Just last week, the actress shared a mirror selfie in which she could be seen showing off her growing baby bump, pulling up her black shirt to flaunt her stomach, while grimacing at the camera.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026
Symptoms include diarrhoea, fever and stomach pain, according to the US Food and Drug Administration.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
My stomach twists when she says that, and her wide, almond-shaped, coffee-brown eyes, framed by her perfectly plucked eyebrows, bore into mine.
From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam
Interestingly, the number of Chinook and coho salmon found in pike stomachs dropped over the past decade.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 25, 2026
However, Clements said she had been taught by Asare to put babies on their stomachs.
From BBC ● Mar. 23, 2026
“It’s kind of like the Daniel Boone of burritos. It blazed that path into the stomachs of Americans to make better burritos a thing, better burritos a possibility.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 26, 2025
Still, investors with strong stomachs may do better by leaning into the market’s volatility, or better yet ignoring it altogether.
From Barron's ● Nov. 14, 2025
It was moist and creamy and absolutely too much for our already bursting stomachs, but it was scrumptious.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
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
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
The Nationals stomached that once again, then took a calculated leap.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 28, 2020
This was an opposition that they might have stomached.
From She Stands Accused by Victor MacClure
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
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
And after stomaching a bombardment of body blows, the Huskies were unable to answer, producing back-to-back punts in the second half.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 18, 2023
At this moment, one of the enemy, who had been annoying us from a thicket some thirty paces from where I stood, not stomaching the grape, made a movement from his hiding-place.
From Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp Late a Lieut. in His Majesty's 87th Regiment by John Shipp
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.
