Other forms: wombs
The womb is the organ in which a baby grows before birth. In the womb, leave the womb, womb lining.
It is about the size of a pear and stretches to hold a full-term baby, then returns nearly to its old size within weeks. Uterus is the medical word and womb the everyday one. The Old English word meant the belly generally. Note the silent b.
1nounwombThe organ in which a baby grows before birth.
“The baby kicked inside her womb.”
womb is an organ.
Old English wamb means the belly or stomach, from a Germanic root. The sense narrowed to the organ.
Proto-Germanic
*wambō — belly, stomach, abdomen
Proto-West Germanic
*wambu
Old English
womb
Middle English
wombe
English, today
womb
Built from
From Middle English wombe, wambe, from Old English womb, wamb (“belly, stomach; bowels; heart; womb; hollow”), from Proto-West Germanic wambu, from Proto-Germanic wambō (“belly, stomach, abdomen”). Cognate with Scots wam, wame (“womb”), Dutch wam (“dewlap of beef; belly of a fish”), German Wamme, Wampe (“paunch, belly”), Danish vom (“belly, paunch, rumen”), Swedish våmb (“belly, stomach, rumen”), Norwegian vom (“rumen”), Icelandic vömb (“belly, abdomen, stomach”), owl gumbelauc (“womb”), Breton gwamm (“woman, wife”), Sanskrit वपा (“the skin or membrane lining the intestines or parts of the viscera, the caul or omentum”). Superseded nonnative mater, matere (“womb”), and matris, matrice (“womb”) borrowed from māter and matrice, respectively.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA