The womb is the organ inside a woman's or a female animal's body where a baby grows before it is born. The other English name for it is the uterus, and the difference between the two is worth knowing: uterus is the doctor's word, used in hospitals and biology books, while womb is the everyday and emotional word, the one used in ordinary talk, in poems, and in religion. "In the womb" is the usual way to say "before birth": "the baby moves in the womb", "tests done while the child is still in the womb." Beyond the body, writers use womb for any dark, warm, safe, enclosed place that something grows in — "the womb of the earth", "the womb of night" — and for the place where an idea was born. There is also a common set phrase, "from the womb to the tomb", meaning for someone's whole life. Because the word touches birth and the body, it feels more intimate than uterus; some speakers avoid it in formal or mixed company for that reason.