Abdominal

How to spell abdominal

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce abdominal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does abdominal mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the abdomen, the part of the body containing the stomach and other digestive organs.

Abdominal in a sentence

• The physiotherapist gave her exercises to strengthen the abdominal muscles.

• The patient complained of sharp abdominal pain after lunch.

Where does abdominal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin abdomen, the word for the belly or the lower part of the trunk, to which English added the adjective ending -al to mean 'relating to the abdomen'. The Latin abdomen is itself a bit of a puzzle: it may be linked to the verb abdere, meaning 'to hide away' or 'to put out of sight', as though the belly were the place where food was concealed, though scholars are not certain of this. The adjective form appeared in English in the seventeenth century, riding alongside the growth of anatomy and medicine as Latin terms were absorbed wholesale into scientific writing. The spelling keeps the single d and single m of the Latin root, which is the usual trap, since the unstressed middle vowels tempt writers toward doubling or dropping letters. Remembering the parent noun 'abdomen' fixes the order of letters and the lone consonants.

How the word is built

• abdomin- (from Latin abdomen: the belly)
• -al (adjective suffix meaning 'relating to')