Saturday, February 08, 2014

Fwd: maw: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dictionary.com <doctor@dictionary.com>
Date: 2014-02-08 3:00 GMT-05:00
Subject: maw: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
To: "Hector William G." <hectorpinillos@gmail.com>

Word of the Day for Saturday, February 8, 2014

maw \maw\, noun:

1. the symbolic or theoretical center of a voracious hunger or appetite of any kind: the ravenous maw of Death.
2. the mouth, throat, or gullet of an animal, especially a carnivorous mammal.
3. a cavernous opening that resembles the open jaws of an animal: the gaping maw of hell.

I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.
-- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818

The team of seven had been created to browse and graze through all existing writings, and to make a catalog of all that was swept into the team's collective maw.
-- Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman, 1998

Maw comes to us from the Old English maga meaning "stomach." Its figurative use first appeared in the late 1300s.

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