Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The belly, especially a protruding one; a potbelly.
- n. See rumen.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The belly; the abdomen.
- n. Specifically, in zoology, the rumen. See cut under ruminant.
- n. Nautical
- n. Same as paunce, 2.
- To pierce or rip the belly of; stick or stab in the belly; eviscerate.
- To fill the paunch of; stuff with food.
Wiktionary
- n. The first stomach of ruminant, the rumen.
- n. The abdomen or belly of a human or animal, especially a large, protruding one.
- v. To remove the internal organs of a ruminant, such as a hare or rabbit prior to eating.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The belly and its contents; the abdomen; also, the first stomach, or rumen, of ruminants. See rumen.
- n. A paunch mat; -- called also
panch . - n. The thickened rim of a bell, struck by the clapper.
- n. A noticeably protruding belly; a potbelly.
- v. To pierce or rip the belly of; to eviscerate; to disembowel.
- v. To stuff with food.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a protruding abdomen
Etymologies
- Middle English paunche, from Old French panche, from Latin pantex.
Examples
“To quote the foreword in one of Luther's books, "his gorged paunch is puffed up with uncivil pride.”
“When the paunch is to be punctured, the animal must be stabbed with a knife (a penknife will do) midway between the haunch-bone and the last rib of the left side; and the opening should be prevented from closing, by the introduction of a tin tube or something of that kind, till the gases are dispelled.”
The Lady's Country Companion: or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally
“And for a long time, I made the excuse that having a paunch was a sign of success, and, you know, I live a high life in the literary world; we all do.”
“The almost universal respect inspired by a beard or a paunch is a poor tribute to human discernment.”
“It has already been shown by the illustration, (p. 4,) that the paunch is the largest of the four cavities; but this is not the case with the stomach of the young calf, which, while it continues to suck, does not ruminate; in this case the _reed_, which is the true digestive cavity, is actually larger than the other three taken together.”
“His chin and his paunch were his most telling points.”
“EPA's North East manager Ann Telford said the large stockpiles of odorous waste material had been identified as paunch - the contents of an animal's stomach, and sludge generated from the rendering process.”
“For men, this comes in the shape of a 'paunch' and for women this is described as being 'apple shaped' rather than 'pear shaped'.”
“a second time; and the process is thus accomplished: they have four stomachs, the first is called the paunch, and is the largest of all; into it descend the grass, herbs, and leaves, when first cropped and imperfectly masticated.”
“Bojador, the "paunch" or "bulging Cape," 180 miles beyond Cape Non, had been, since the days of the Laurentian Portulano (1351), and the Catalan and Portuguese voyages of 1341 and 1346, the southmost point of”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘paunch’.
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Anglo-Norman
English words of Norman-French origin.
wage, wait, war, wicket, warranty, guarantee, guard, warden, guardian, glamour, grammar, catch and 30 more...
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Words with 'aunch' in them.
For some reason this combination has always appealed to me; sometimes to the point of altering words to make them.
launch, staunch, paunch, craunch, haunch, aunchient, traunch, raunchy, launcheon, raunch, paunchy, faunch and 17 more...
sonofgroucho Not that I have one, of course.... Apr 13, 2007