windpipe

UK/ˈwɪndpaɪp/US/ˈwɪndpaɪp/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,713 of 15,258leans spoken

The windpipe is the tube carrying air down to the lungs. Blocked windpipe, down the windpipe, the windpipe closed.

The medical word is trachea, and it sits in front of the tube to the stomach — which is why food going down the wrong way means it has gone into the windpipe. The rings of cartilage round it stop it collapsing, and they are open at the back so the food tube can bulge.

Definitions of windpipe

1nounwindpipeThe tube carrying air down to the lungs.B2+
“A piece of apple went down his windpipe, and he started choking.”

windpipe is a tube.

Where it comes from

Wind plus pipe, recorded from the 1520s. Wind here means air or breath.

From wind + pipe. 1520s.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

windpipe in the wild

There must be no thrusting of the knife under the skin or between the gullet and windpipe.
Hullin
The gullet or windpipe must not be torn out of position in the course of slaughtering.
Hullin
During this operation an opening between the food pipe and the windpipe can be created (primary puncture).
Voice prosthesis
Magill forceps are angled surgical tongs used to guide breathing tubes into the windpipe or retrieve obstructions from the throat without blocking the view of the larynx.
Magill forceps

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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