womb
Americannoun
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wombs
plural
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the uterus of the human female and certain higher mammals.
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the place in which anything is formed or produced.
the womb of time.
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the interior of anything.
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Obsolete. the belly.
noun
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the nontechnical name for uterus
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a hollow space enclosing something, esp when dark, warm, or sheltering
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a place where something is conceived
the Near East is the womb of western civilization
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obsolete the belly
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of womb
before 900; Middle English, Old English: belly, womb; cognate with Dutch wam, German Wamme, Gothic wamba belly; cf. wamus
Explanation
A womb is the organ in which female mammals grow and carry a fetus before it's ready to be born. Your first home was a womb, but good luck trying to return there. Womb is a slightly more casual, everyday way to say uterus. Whichever word you use, it's the name of the organ that biologically female mammals have for growing fetuses before birth. Many animals have two wombs, but humans just have one. In Old English, womb meant "uterus," but it also meant "belly, bowels, or heart."
Vocabulary lists containing womb
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"The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet," Vocabulary from Act 2
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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:
About 160 million years ago, near the end of the Jurassic Period, the common ancestor of all placental mammals, whose young develop in the womb, appeared.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026
A caesarean, or C-section, is a major operation to deliver a baby through a cut made in a woman's stomach and womb.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
This meant that children born just a few months apart had very different levels of sugar exposure both in the womb and during early childhood.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
Zika can spread from a birthing parent to their child in the womb and cause congenital disabilities, which notoriously led to panic after an outbreak erupted in Brazil in 2015.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
Once in the womb, once to the lion, and now like Simon Peter I had denied her for the third time.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
No details have been made public about the three women who have so far received wombs from deceased donor organs.
From BBC ● Apr. 7, 2025
With this new definition, people who need to “borrow” DNA and wombs from fertility helpers—egg donors, sperm donors, and gestational carriers—have more protection from being discriminated against at fertility clinics and by insurance companies.
From Slate ● Nov. 6, 2023
After the 2017 study generated extensive media coverage, fears spread that artificial wombs could one day replace pregnancy.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 18, 2023
Alena Grom’s photographs portray women and children in the Donbas war zone, sheltered precariously in the tight, dark wombs of mines and cellars.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 10, 2023
They were all hidden away on the longbeds in their bags like babies in wombs, invisible, indistinguishable.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
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.
