to suck in one's stomach
1
5.8
- phrasal verb
:
meter el estómago
- Before taking the photo, she decided to suck in her stomach to look slimmer.
- trying to suck in my stomach
Examples
-
It looked like he was sucking in his stomach.
Fiction book (1995) -
One of the young monks audibly sucked in his stomach, as though suddenly aware that something profound was happening.
Fiction book (2001) -
"He sucked in his stomach.
Fiction book (1999) -
Suck in your stomach, Russell.
-
Like a reflex, I suck in my stomach, trying to prove her wrong.
Fiction book (2002) -
I take a deep breath, suck in my stomach, and squeeze through the small crack in the gate.
Fiction book (1993) -
Suck in your stomach and walk thusly.
-
He tried to compensate, when he remembered, by sucking in his stomach and looking fierce.
Fiction book (1993) -
Nothing much wrong with him, he reflected, sucking in his stomach and pulling himself upright before the full-length reflection on the back of the door.
Fiction book (1992) -
He sucks in his stomach when he walks by the girl selling bootleg CDs on the corner.
Fiction book (1991)
Synonyms
13
3.7
To pull air or liquid into something by making an empty space inside
Antonyms
How Tight
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a literal, compositional description: 'suck' (pull) + 'in' (toward the inside) applied to 'one's stomach' clearly describes drawing the belly inward to look slimmer. This physical, observable action matches cross-linguistic expressions and follows a common phrasal-verb pattern, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
The phrase suck in one's stomach comes from the literal action of using your mouth to suck, which pulls the stomach inward, like when you use a straw. So it means 'to tighten your belly to make it look smaller'.