The loins are the part of the body on either side of the backbone, between the ribs and pelvis. It is often used when describing the anatomy of humans and quadrupeds (such as horses, pigs or cattle). The anatomical reference also carries over into the description of cuts of meat from some such animals, eg. tenderloin or sirloin steak. The vertebral column seen from the side Different regions (curvatures) of the vertebral column The vertebral column (backbone or spine) is a column of vertebrae situated in the dorsal aspect of the abdomen. ... The human rib cage. ... The pelvis (pl. ... Trinomial name Homo sapiens sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin for wise man or knowing man) under the family Hominidae (known as the great apes). ... The Zebra is an example of a quadruped. ... Binomial name Equus caballus Linnaeus, 1758 The horse (Equus caballus, sometimes seen as a subspecies of the Wild Horse, Equus ferus caballus) is a large odd-toed ungulate mammal, one of ten modern species of the genus Equus. ... Species Sus barbatus Sus bucculentus Sus cebifrons Sus celebensis Sus domesticus Sus heureni Sus philippensis Sus salvanius Sus scrofa Sus timoriensis Sus verrucosus Pigs are ungulates native to Eurasia collectively grouped under the genus Sus within the Suidae family. ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle (called cows in vernacular and contemporary usage, kine or kyne in pre-modern English, or kye as the Scots plural of cou) are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... A beef wellington. ... The sirloin steak is beef steak cut from the lower portion of the ribs, continuing off of the tenderloin from which filet mignon is cut. ...

The term also loosely refers to human (particularly male) genitals (due to their prominence in that anatomical region), eg. in William Butler Yeats celebrated poem, Leda and the Swan, where he writes of Helen of Troy's conception in the following way: "A shudder in the loins engenders there the broken wall, the burning roof and tower and Agamemnon dead." A sex organ, or primary sexual characteristic, narrowly defined, is any of those anatomical parts of the body (which are not always bodily organs according to the strict definition) which are involved in sexual reproduction and constitute the reproductive system in a complex organism; namely: Male: penis (notably the glans... W.B. Yeats in Dublin on 24 January 1908. ... Leda and the Swan: copy after a lost original by Michelangelo, one of the iconic images of 16th century Mannerism The motif of Leda and the Swan from Greek mythology, in which the Greek god Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan, was rarely seen in Gothic... Helen (Greek: , Helénē), often known as Helen of Troy and the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium, was reputed to be the most beautiful mortal woman in Greek mythology. ... A spermatozoon fertilising an ovum Fertilisation, also spelled fertilization (also known as conception, fecundation and syngamy), is fusion of gametes to form a new organism of the same species. ... -1...

See also:

• loincloth
• Cuts of Beef