maws

Noun

maw (countable and uncountable, plural maws)

1. The upper digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially the mouth and jaws of an animal.
   • To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw1818, John Keats, “(please specify the page)”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC
   1. (slang) The mouth and jaws of a furry.
      • […] / As you lift your shirt I'm closer / grab me by the maw into your arm- // […] / Sniff it with my maw I / […] / Smelling all of you its / […] / Getting me hard gimme more / […] / more more2025 February 14, Pent Up Puppy, “PITS”, in FURFAG, archived from the original on 23 Feb 2025
2. (derogatory, slang) The mouth.
   • Shut your maw!

   Synonyms:

   trap, yap

3. (figuratively) Any large, insatiable or perilous opening.
   • Adam requires a touch of feminine lace and a whisper of diaphanous silk, not a direct vision of the gaping maw of the human vulva.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 23
4. (obsolete, uncountable) Appetite; inclination.
   • Unless you had more maw to do me good.1607 (first performance), Francis Beaumont, “The Knight of the Burning Pestle”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC...
5. The swim bladder of a fish, especially when used as food in Chinese cuisine.
   • fish maw: The buoyancy bladder of a fish similar in appearance to the mammalian lung. The maw of the conger pike is used in Chinese cooking and is usually sold in dried form which needs reconstituting for about 3 hours and treating with[…]1998, Charles Gordon Sinclair, International Dictionary of Food and Cooking, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 203

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