Alvine

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ælvɪn/

Definitions

1. Pertaining to the discharge or expulsion of solid waste from the bowels
2. Concerning the process or characteristics of defecation or bowel movements
3. Associated with the elimination of fecal matter from the digestive tract

Etymology: Latin "alvus" meant "belly," and in medical use it came to mean the bowels, the lower digestive tract. English took the adjective "alvine" from that sense, using the suffix "-ine," which signals "relating to" in words such as "canine" or "marine." The result is a word that sounds more distant than the bodily matter it describes, which is much of its appeal to writers who want a clinical or euphemistic tone. The adjective comes to English by way of French, where "alvin" carries the same meaning, so the English word is best understood as a borrowing from that French formation rather than a direct transfer from Latin. Its original meaning, "of the belly," narrowed over time to the intestines and their evacuation, the sense that dominates today. Because the Latin root is also the source of "alvus," a term for the bowels still found in older medical writing, the family of words shows how a plain anatomical noun became a precise technical adjective.