• IPA: /ɪnˈtɛstɪn/, /ɪnˈtɛsˌtiːn/
• (Canada, Australia) IPA: /ɪnˈtɛstaɪn/

intestine (plural intestines)

1. (anatomy, often pluralized) The alimentary canal of an animal through which food passes after having passed all stomachs.
2. One of certain subdivisions of this part of the alimentary canal, such as the small or large intestine in human beings.

• bowel
• gut
• tharm

• French: intestin, boyau (intestine of an animal, or, informally, of a human)
• German: Darm, Eingeweide
• Italian: intestino
• Portuguese: intestino
• Russian: кишка́
• Spanish: intestino, tripa

• French: intestin
• German: Darm, Eingeweide
• Italian: intestino
• Portuguese: intestino
• Russian: кишка́
• Spanish: intestino, intestinos

intestine (not comparable)

1. Domestic; taking place within a given country or region.
   • 1615, Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia, Richmond 1957, p.2:

     It being true that now after fiue yeeres intestine warre with the reuengefull implacable Indians, a firme peace (not againe easily to be broken) hath bin lately concluded […].

   • 1776, Edward Gibbon, The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch.1,

     Yet the success of Trajan, however transient, was rapid and specious. The degenerate Parthians, broken by intestine discord, fled before his arms.

2. (obsolete) Internal.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 41, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book I, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     When you have alleaged all the reasons you can, and beleeved all to disavow and reject her, she produceth, contrarie to your discourses, so intestine inclination, that you have small hold against her.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 6”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     Hoping here to end / Intestine war in heaven, the arch foe subdued.

   • an intestine struggle […] between authority and liberty

3. (obsolete, rare) Depending upon the internal constitution of a body or entity; subjective.

   • Everything labours under an intestine necessity.

4. (obsolete, rare) Shut up; enclosed.