[a. L. colon, a. Gr. κόλον food, meat, the colon. The form κῶλον found in MSS. is metrically incorrect (e.g., Aristoph. Eq. 455) and arose from confusion with κῶλον a limb or member (Lidd. and Sc.). Cf. F. colon.]
1. Anat. The greater portion of the large intestine, extending from the caecum to the rectum. It ascends by the right kidney (right lumbar or ascending colon), passes below the liver to the spleen (transverse colon), and descends to the left kidney (left lumbar or descending colon), whence it extends (as the sigmoid flexure, or left iliac colon) to the commencement of the rectum. † Formerly, popularly, the belly or guts; To feed or satisfy colon: to appease hunger.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. xlii. (1495), 158. The thyrde grete gutte highte Colon … is joyned fast to the nether openynge of all the body.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg. The fyrste hyght Esac, the seconde Colon.
1622. Massinger & Dekker, Virgin Martyr, III. iii. Mine eyes … curse my feet for not ambling up and down to feed Colon.
1631. Heywood, Maid of the West, II. iv. Wks. 1874, II. 393. What trick have you to satisfie Colon?
1656. S. Holland, Zara (1719), 8. Our Champions … Colon cramm’d with an accustom’d vacuity.
1670. Phil. Trans., V. 2097. One Colon or Colick gut.
1800. trans. Lagrange’s Chem., I. 306. A calculus, weighing several ounces, found in the colon of a horse.
1842. E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M., 516.
1872. Huxley, Phys., vi. 150.
b. Entom. The second (usually wider) portion of the intestine of an insect.
1836–9. G. Newport, in Todd, Encycl. Anat., II. 971/2 s.v. Insect, It [the stomach] then is continued backwards as a long ilium and terminates in a muscular banded colon without a distinct rectum.
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., 409.
1888. Rolleston & Jackson, Anim. Life, 139.
