borborygmo-, borborygm- +
(Greek > Latin: intestinal rumblings, to rumble; gurgling, and splashings)
Some people are so afraid that others will hear these sounds that they become social phobics and avoid public gatherings or situations where others may hear them.
2. A rumbling in the bowels.
"Elephant hunters say that they can tell the proximity of a herd by the borborygmic noises the poor brutes emit."
"The room was very quiet, except for its borborygmic old radiator."
Peristalsis is the rippling motion of muscles in the digestive tract. In the stomach, this motion mixes food with gastric juices, turning it into a thin liquid.
Bowel sounds are normal. Their absence can indicate intestinal obstruction.
The word borborygmus has been rumbling around the English language for some 200 years. Its earliest known use in English dates back to 1796. The word arrived from New Latin, but traces its etymology back to the Greek borboryzein, "to rumble".