How to use maw in a sentence

16 example sentences · noun

Maw means the upper digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially the mouth and jaws of an animal. Example: “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.”

Examples of maw by meaning

nounAny 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...
And I howled at the maw in the drivin' rain.2011 October 11, “Jumping Jack Flash (Live 1973)” (track 14), in Brussels Affair (Live 1973), performed by The Rolling Stones

nounThe 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.1998, Charles Gordon Sinclair, International Dictionary of Food and Cooking, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 203
Fish maw is the commercial term for the dried swim bladders of large fish like sturgeon.2009 April 28, Teresa M. Chen, A Tradition of Soup: Flavors from China's Pearl River Delta, North Atlantic Books, →ISBN, page 70

More sentences with maw

His body, like so many others swallowed by the ocean's hungry maw, was never found.2010 October 28, “What are the wild waves saying”, in The Economist. From the entry swallow
Thresher maws are subterranean carnivores that spend their entire lives eating or searching for something to eat.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Thresher Maws Codex entry. From the entry spore
I heard him saying to my maw about a snib for the door.2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 99. From the entry snib
Miss Helen is the same kind er spender as her maw.1917, Emma Speed Sampson, “Chapter III: The Problem”, in The Carter Girls’ Weekend Camp, published 2017. From the entry millionennium
My maw went potty and started greeting.2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 2. From the entry greet
Every Tuesday the house'd be ram-packed with reject chocolate biscuits that my maw brought home from the factory she worked in.2005, Valerie Thornton, Hamish Whyte, Maoilios M. Caimbeul, Queen of the Sheep, page 102. From the entry ram-packed
But here comes woesome old me and my maw down the yard with battered suitcases arriving almost like phantoms dripping from the sea.2016, Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels. From the entry woesome
Her maw gived her one in a poke and she was going to throw it in the bin, Oh it is all black.2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 138. From the entry poke
Miss Ratched shall line us all against the wall, where we’ll face the terrible maw of a muzzle-loading shotgun which she has loaded with Miltowns!1962, Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, New York: Dial, page 255. From the entry tranquilize
While straining to wedge a fresh slice of turducken into your gaping maw you choke to death on a stray bone and the irony of your untimely demise.2016, John C. Havens, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, →ISBN. From the entry turducken
Provided you didn't surrender your ticket into the maw of the gateline at B, you could in theory go back to A and do the whole trip again.2010, Stephanie Smith, Underground London. From the entry gateline
But even for the maw shots, the crew animated a full CG head and shoulders - not just replacement parts - to help blend the real and the fake.2003, Animation Magazine, volume 17, page 47. From the entry maw shot

Meaning of maw

noun The upper digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially the mouth and jaws of an animal.
noun The mouth and jaws of a furry.
noun The mouth.

Full definition of maw

Questions about maw in a sentence

How do you use maw in a sentence?: Maw is used as a noun. For example: “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.”
What is a short sentence with maw?: “My maw went potty and started greeting.”
What does maw mean?: Maw means the upper digestive tract (where food enters the body), especially the mouth and jaws of an animal.

Adapted from Wiktionary: maw (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use maw in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/maw. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.