nave

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The navel.

   Till he faced the slave; / Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, / Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps, / And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

From Middle English nave, from Old English nafu, from Proto-West Germanic *nabu, from Proto-Germanic *nabō (compare Dutch naaf, German Nabe, Swedish nav), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃nebʰ- (“navel, hub”) (compare Latin umbō (“shield boss”), Latvian naba, Sanskrit नभ्य (nabhya)).

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