Wame noun belly
‘“Hey!” He leaned forward and snatched the plate out from under the tentative reach of Young Ian’s skinny fingers. “You’re no supposed to be eating rich stuff like that when your wame’s curdled.”’ (Voyager)
The Old English word wamb retains its more general sense of belly in Scots, although the modern English word ‘womb’ (from the same source) is less used in Scotland than England. Wame is certainly used in Scots to mean uterus though, as this from William Taylor’s Scots Poems (1787), shows: ‘Man naked comes frae Minnie’s wyme’.
Around the same sort of time, we also find it used in the sense of belly, as here in Robert Fergusson’s Poems (published in 1772) in which he exhorts the citizens of Edinburgh to ‘Hap ye weel, baith back and wame, In gude Braid Claith.’
More specifically, wame often means the stomach, so that extreme hunger can be expressed thus: ‘“Lassies,” he said plaintively, “I’m hungry. My wame thinks my throat’s cut.” They brought him powsoudie, drummock, kebbuck and farle. He ate it and dressed.’ (Alasdair Gray, A History Maker 1994.)
If you want to squander the offspring’s inheritance, eating out more often will probably do it: ‘What’s in your wame’s no in your testament.’ Maybe we can all be satisfied with more hamely fare. After all, ‘A wame-fu’ is a wame-fu’ whether it be of the barleymeal or the bran.’ (Walter Scott, St Ronan’s Well 1824.) And it’s too easy to spend unnecessarily: ‘There’s Watty wi’ the budget in his wime.’ (Hugh Haliburton, Horace in Homespun 1886.)
Walter Scott uses it more metaphorically in The Antiquary (1816) of an unfortunate beggar and his unhappy end: ‘And here or yonder - at the back o’ a dyke, in a wreath o’ snaw, or in the wame o’ a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie dies!’
Finally, on a more cheerful note, what school child hasn’t laughed with James McBey at this too? ‘I read out, “Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms.” She regarded the engraving with deep renewed interest, then said, “Puir man. Nae wunner he’s hauden his wymie.”’ (The Early Life of James McBey 1993.)