Tummy

How to spell tummy

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce tummy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tummy mean?

1. nounAn informal, affectionate word for the stomach or belly.

Tummy in a sentence

• The rich dessert left a heavy feeling in my tummy.

• The toddler rubbed his tummy and said he was hungry.

Where does tummy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This is an informal, affectionate word for the stomach that first appeared in English in the early nineteenth century. It grew out of the word 'stomach' itself, which came through Old French from the Latin 'stomachus' and ultimately the Greek 'stomachos', a word that originally meant the throat or gullet before it shifted to mean the digestive organ. Speakers, especially in nursery and family settings, clipped 'stomach' down to its stressed middle sound and reshaped it as 'tummy', adding the soft diminutive ending '-y' (or '-my') that English loves for cosy, familiar words like 'mummy' and 'doggy'. The doubled 'm' in the spelling reflects the short, clipped vowel before it, the same pattern seen in 'jimmy' or 'dummy'. Because the word is built on sound and affection rather than on a Latin root, its spelling is short and regular, with the only real decision being the double 'm' and the final 'y'.

How the word is built

• tum- (clipped, altered form of 'stomach')
• -my (diminutive/affectionate suffix)