Digestive

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /daɪˈdʒɛstɪv/

Definitions

1. Concerning the biological functions that convert food into usable energy
2. Pertaining to the physiological process that prepares ingested items for absorption into the body
3. Connected with the process by which the body breaks down food into nutrients for absorption

Etymology: The adjective "digestive" carries a sense of breaking down that goes back to Late Latin "dīgestīvus," formed from "dīgerere," meaning "to separate" or "to distribute," which itself combines "dis-" (apart) with "gerere" (to carry or manage). The original idea was of carrying things apart into their parts, a notion that later came to describe the breaking-down of food in the stomach. The word reached English through Old French "digestif," which had the same sense of something that aids digestion or dissolves matter. English took the adjective and kept it close to its Latin form, so that "digestive" and the related noun "digestif" (a drink taken after a meal to aid digestion) are doublets: two forms of one ancestor that entered the language by different routes. The noun "digestif" kept the French shape and the adjective kept the Latin-derived ending.

Synonyms: absorbent, nutritive

Antonyms: indigestible, unabsorbed