pancreas
noun
Simple meaning
A gland near the stomach which secretes a fluid into the duodenum to help with food digestion.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pankreeuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpænkɹiəs
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
anatomy
A gland near the stomach which secretes a fluid into the duodenum to assist with food digestion.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A gland near the stomach which secretes a fluid into the duodenum to assist with food digestion.
Used this way, pancreas is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The most common hereditary disease.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Of or involving the pancreas.
Inflammation of the pancreas.
A duct connecting the pancreas with the intestine.
The most common hereditary disease.
A branch of the splenic artery that supplies the pancreas.
Veins draining the pancreas and emptying into the superior mesenteric and splenic veins.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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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.