borborygm

Noun

borborygm (plural borborygms or borborygmi)

1. (rare) A gurgling or rumbling noise produced by gas in the bowels.
   • Borborygm, a rumbling Noiſe in the Guts.[1707, “Borborygm”, in Glossographia Anglicana Nova: Or, A Dictionary, Interpreting such Hard Words of Whatever Language, as are at Present Used in the English Tongue, with Their Etymologies...
   • Should the dose of bark [of Cinchona trees] be too strong, or its use be too long continued, or finally, the digestive canal, or any other organ be in a state of inflammation, all the phenomena we have just mentioned become more intense and all the symptoms of phlegmasia are aggravated. Uneasiness...1829, H[enri] M[ilne-]Edwards, P[ierre] Vavasseur, Joseph Togno, E[lias] Durand, “Tonic Substances”, in A Manual of Materia Medica and Pharmacy, […], Philadelphia, Pa.: Carey, Lea & Carey— […]...

   Synonyms:

   borborygmus

2. (figuratively) A gurgling or rumbling.
   • [Susan] Sontag then pauses for the space of a paragraph to deliver a swift verbal kick at American fiction for its technical unadventurousness, its lack of an avant-garde, and its tendency to interpretive borborygm.1997, David Solway, “Never on Sontag”, in Random Walks: Essays in Elective Criticism, Montreal, Que.; Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen's University Press, →ISBN, part 1, page 6
   • When the promised state of affairs failed to materialize, the specifically communist claim of authority was rendered void, and it was clumsily and awkwardly replaced by Brezhnevite borborygms of the status quo.2002, G[áspár] M[iklós] Tamás, “Victory Defeated”, in Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, editors, Democracy after Communism (A Journal of Democracy Book), Baltimore, Md.; London: The Johns Hopkins...