throat
/θrəʊt
/noun
1The passage which leads from the back of the mouth of a person or animal: her throat was parched with thirst he’s pouring beer down his throat...
- The infection spreads from the nose or throat through the Eustachian tube, a passage between the throat and the middle ear.
- The soft palate forms a curtain between the mouth and the throat, or pharynx, to the rear.
- When we swallow, the soft palate closes off the nasal passages from the throat to prevent food from entering the nose.
Synonyms
gullet, oesophagus;
windpipe, trachea;
crop, craw, maw;
neck
technical pharynx, oropharynx, fauces, gorget
informal, dated the red lane
archaic throttle, gorge, gula
1.1The front part of a person’s or animal’s neck: a gold pendant gleamed at her throat...
- For boys, when the larynx grows bigger, it tilts to a different angle inside the neck and part of it sticks out at the front of the throat.
- There as a long, white scar that ran from under his pointy chin, down the front of his throat, and to the middle of his collarbone.
- The strange mark seemed to go right across his throat, at the front, where the windpipe would be.
1.2 literary A voice of a person or a songbird: from a hundred throats came the cry ‘Vive l’Empereur!’...
- "Forever," came back the hushed whisper from a hundred throats.
- Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell
- There was the water-on-shale sound of amusement hissed from a dozen throats.
1.3A thing compared to a throat, especially a narrow passage, entrance, or exit.What we have to imagine now is that a tiny piece of that skin is pinched off, forming a little blister connected to the Universe by a narrow throat - the black hole....
- They had decided to meet the Utuku in the narrow throat in the Papti Plain between the Lolopopo Swamp and the great bend of the Adkapo.
- The extra deep throat of the gauge enables materials to be measured up to 4 3/4 inches from the edge of a sheet.
1.4 Sailing The forward upper corner of a quadrilateral fore-and-aft sail.When the throat halliard is belayed, hoist the peak until deep, full wrinkles appear in the throat of the sail....
- The throat of the sail is lashed with a 4 mm lacing line to the shank of the bolt behind the gaff jaw.
- A single halyard to the throat of the sail is an alternative to lashing the throat permanently to the masthead, and it facilitates reefing.
Phrases
be at each other's throats
cut one's own throat
force (or ram or shove) something down someone's throat
grab (or take) someone by the throat
Derivatives
throated
[in combination]: a full-throated baritone
Origin
Old English throte, throtu, of Germanic origin; related to German Drossel. Compare with throttle.