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
Unit 1: Telling Details
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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:
A post-mortem examination later revealed Hayley had suffered a silent, concealed placental abruption, meaning her placenta had separated from the wall of the womb.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
Endometriosis is where cells similar to those in the lining of the womb grow in other parts of the body, resulting in what Barnett has described as "bone-grinding, life-altering pain".
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 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
Doctors partially exposed his mother's womb and then gently pushed his organs back inside his abdomen using keyhole surgery.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
Was death merely a return to the womb of mother earth, or did they have some conception of the beyond?
From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson
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
The development of artificial wombs represents a “big transformational leap” that “solves lots of issues,” says David.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 18, 2023
Kaczor imagines that artificial wombs would likely be used first as part of the intensive care given to premature infants.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 17, 2021
Some had seven or eight and didn’t understand how fortunate they were, how blessed that their children had flourished in their wombs, lived to squirm in their arms and take the milk from their breasts.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
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.
