Craw

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kɹɔː/

Definitions

1. The expandable throat pouch of a bird where food is stored before digestion ; a human's stomach or appetite, often referred to figuratively
2. An internal pouch found in certain birds used to hold food temporarily ; the belly or desire for food in a person
3. A sac in a bird's neck for holding consumed food ; slang for the stomach or hunger in a person

Etymology: The most striking thing about "craw" is that it may share a root with "crag," the rocky outcrop. Both trace back to a Proto-Germanic word for "throat," and the Norse ancestor of "crag" (kragi) was apparently the same word as the one behind the bird's pouch, so a rock and a gullet once shared a name. The link is not certain, but the Old Norse term *kravi, meaning "neck, collar, gullet, crop of a bird," is the direct ancestor of "craw" in English, arriving in the Late Middle English period. The word's deeper history is murky. It is generally linked to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "throat" or "gullet," which may be an extension of a verb meaning "to swallow, devour." Related forms appear across Germanic languages: German "Kragen" means "collar," Dutch "kraag" likewise, and Swedish "kräva" and Danish "krave" both keep the sense of a bird's crop. The shared idea is a band or passage at the neck, whether a collar on a garment or the swelling pouch in which a bird stores food.

Synonyms: crop, gullet