See Also: navel(medicine)
Navel(health)
navel(dictionary)
navel(dictionary)
Fuzzy Banana Navel(recipes)

navel (iou)



navel noun.
[Old English nafela = Old Frisian navla, naula, Middle & mod. Low German, Middle Dutch navel, Old High German nabalo (German Nabel), Old Norse nafli, from Germanic from Indo-European base repr. also by Latin umbo boss of shield, Greek omphalos navel, boss. Cf. NAVE noun1.]
A rounded depression with a more or less raised or protuberant centre, situated in the middle of the abdomen where the umbilical cord was originally attached; the umbilicus. OE.
contemplate one's navel, gaze at one's navel, regard one's navel engage in usu. profitless meditation or contemplation, be complacently parochial or escapist.
b. The junction of a leaf with a stem. rare. LME-L17.
c. Heraldry. = NOMBRIL. E19.
d. ellipt. = navel orange below. L19.
The centre or central point of something, esp. a country, sea, or forest. LME.
Art & Artists Cyprus was the navel of Byzantine culture.
The nave of a wheel. rare. LME-E17.
Comb.: navel-contemplation, navel-gazing usu. profitless meditation, complacent introversion; navel-ill in calves, foals, and lambs, a general bacterial infection usu. involving inflammation around the navel; navel orange a usu. seedless variety of orange having a secondary row of carpels which open to form a depression like a navel at the apex of the fruit; navel-stone a stone marking a central point, spec. that at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, formerly thought to mark the centre of the earth; navel string the umbilical cord; navelwort a plant with round fleshy peltate leaves, Umbilicus rupestris, of the stonecrop family, growing on rocks and walls esp. in western Britain (also Venus's navelwort); also called pennywort.