tummy

Imitating a child's attempt to say stomach, via archaic colloquialism stummy. Compare twee and pasghetti for similar phonetic reductions.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtʌ.mi/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌmi

tummy (plural tummies)

1. (colloquial, often childish) Stomach or belly.

   Synonym: belly

   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     "So I broke away early this mornin', gave my guard a kick in the tummy that laid him out, and sprinted for the camp."

   • 2013, “Jubilee Street”, in Warren Ellis, Nick Cave (lyrics), Push the Sky Away, performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:

     I got love in my tummy and a tiny little pain / And a ten ton catastrophe on a 60 pound chain

   • 2019 December 16, Chesca & J Hause, “The Lies”, in Litter Box Comics‎:

     Oh man —pal! You didn't swallow that gum, did you?? It stays in your tummy for seven years and all the other bad stuff sticks to it and then a doctor has to cut it out with an axe!

2. (US, slang) Protruding belly, paunch.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:paunch

3. (informal) A woman's uterus, especially in reference to where a baby is carried.

• jiffy tummy
• gyppy tummy
• tummyache
• tummy button
• tummy time
• tummy tuck

• belly (referring to abdomen, not stomach)