digestiva

Digestiva is the feminine form of the Spanish adjective digestivo, meaning related to digestion or intended to aid digestion. It is used to describe aspects of the digestive system, including organs, processes, and symptoms, such as motilidad digestiva (digestive motility), secreción digestiva (digestive secretion), dolor digestivo (digestive pain), and trastornos digestivos (digestive disorders).

In medical and biological contexts, digestiva can modify terms referring to substances or practices that influence digestion, for example enzimas digestivas (digestive enzymes) or medicamentos digestivos (digestive medications). It also appears in everyday language to describe mild digestive discomfort or issues.

In culinary and consumer language, digestiva can occur in expressions like galleta digestiva, or digestive biscuit, a type of biscuit associated with aiding digestion. In many Spanish-speaking countries, however, the term digestivo is more common for post-meal alcoholic beverages, and digestiva may be used less frequently or in branding and general references to foods or drinks designed to facilitate digestion.

Etymologically, digestiva derives from Latin digestivus, from digerere, “to digest.” The term is versatile and can agree with feminine nouns, such as función digestiva (digestive function) or medicina digestiva (digestive medicine), depending on the context.