Intestines

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The digestive organs composed of numerous segments that play a vital role in breaking down food and absorbing its nutrients
2. A series of coiled structures in the digestive system that are essential for the processing of food and nutrient uptake
3. The organs within the abdomen responsible for digesting food and absorbing nutrients through a long, folded tube

Etymology: "Intestines" is the plural of "intestine," and the singular carries the core of its meaning: it comes from Latin "intestinum," the neuter form of the adjective "intestinus," meaning "internal." That adjective is built from "intus," "within," so the word's original sense was simply "the inside parts." The organs were named for their location, not for what they do. Latin used "intestinus" as a plain descriptive adjective long before it became a noun for the gut, and the noun form took over because the digestive tract was the most conspicuous internal organ in that sense. English borrowed the term from Latin in the medical vocabulary of the period, so the modern anatomical meaning and the original spatial sense are the same idea, just applied to one particular set of organs.

Synonyms: bowels, guts, insides, viscera, entrails