maw
noun
Simple meaning
The upper digestive tract.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mawIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmɔ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The upper digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially the mouth and jaws of a fearsome and ravenous creature; craw.
Any large, insatiable or perilous opening.
The swim bladder of a fish, especially when used as food in Chinese cuisine.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The upper digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially the mouth and jaws of a fearsome and ravenous creature; craw.
Used this way, maw is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.