womb

From Middle English wombe, wambe, from Old English womb, wamb, meaning belly, stomach, bowels, heart, or hollow, from Proto-West Germanic *wambu, from Proto-Germanic *wambō, meaning belly or stomach.

The Old English word covered the whole midsection — belly, stomach, bowels, even heart — and only later narrowed to its modern, more specific sense. Middle English also briefly used borrowed words like mater and matrice, from Latin and Old French, before this native word won out.

It shares a root with German Wamme and Wampe (paunch, belly), Dutch wam, and Scandinavian words like Danish vom and Swedish våmb, all pointing back to a shared Germanic word for the belly or stomach.