- abdomen
- 1540s, "belly fat," from L. abdomen (gen. abdominis) "belly," originally "lower belly," perhaps from abdere "conceal," with a sense of "concealment of the viscera," or else "what is concealed" by proper dress. Purely anatomical sense is from 1610s. Biological sense of "posterior division of the bodies of arthropods" first recorded 1788.