▪ I. lung
(lʌŋ)
Forms: 1 lungen, 3–6 lunge, 3–4 longen(e, 4–6 long(e, 4–5 lounge, 5 longon, lungen, (5 longhe, lunche, 6 longue, loong), 6– lung.
[OE. lungen str. fem. = OFris. lungen, MLG. lunge, MDu. longe (Du. long), OHG. lungun (MHG., mod.G. lunge); ON. with change of declension lunga wk. neut.; f. Teut. root *lung-:—OAryan *lngh- in Skr. laghu-, Gr. ἐλαϕρός light: see light a.1 (The lungs were so called because of their lightness: cf. lights.)]
1. a. Each of the two respiratory organs in man and most vertebrate animals, placed within the cavity of the thorax on either side of the heart and communicating with the trachea or windpipe.
| c 1000 ælfric Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker 160/34 Pulmo, lungen. c 1000 Sax. Leechd. II. 92 Mið þy sceal mon lacnian þone man þe biþ lungenne wund. c 1250 Death 172 in O.E. Misc. 178 Nu schal for-rotien þi liure and þi lunge. c 1275 Lay. 6499 Þe longene and þe liure folle to þan grunde. 13.. K. Alis. 4719 Men to heom threowe drit and donge, With foule ayren, with rotheres lunge. a 1340 Hampole Psalter l. 8 It purges þe longes of inflacioun. 1390 Gower Conf. III. 100 The lunge yifth him weie of speche. 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. ix. 189 Lame men he lechede with longen of bestes. c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. i. 49 The longis hool and wynded with the best. c 1440 Gesta Rom. i. 3 (Harl. MS.) The archer..hath y-schotte him selfe in þe lungen. c 1470 Henry Wallace ii. 409 Leuir and lounggis men mycht all redy se. 1481 Caxton Reynard (Arb.) 91 The wulf..gaf to me but half the longes. 1513 Douglas æneis x. vii. 63 That all the blayd, vp to the hylt and hand Amyd his flaffand longis hyd hes he. 1535 Coverdale 1 Kings xxii. 34 A certayne man..shott the kynge of Israel betwene the mawe and y⊇ longes. 1551 T. Wilson Logike (1569) 48 b, Oft fetchyng of winde, declares a sicknesse of the lungus. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. (1586) 133 The sicknes of the Loongs is perceiued if the Dewlap be harde closed together very farre vppe. 1610 Shakes. Temp. ii. i. 174 Gentlemen,..of such sensible and nimble Lungs that they always vse to laugh at nothing. 1612 Bacon Ess., Studies (Arb.) 13 Shooting [is good] for the Lungs and Breast. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) II. 294 In those which breathe through the lungs, some have the heart composed of two ventricles, and some have it of one. 1831 R. Knox Cloquet's Anat. 622 The Lungs..are two spongy, cellular, expansible organs. 1872 Mivart Elem. Anat. xii. (1873) 462 The lungs are attached by their roots to the two branches of the windpipe. |
b. transf. and
fig.,
esp. as in phrase
lungs of London (etc.), applied to open spaces within or adjacent to a city.
| 1651 Cleveland Poems 10 Could not the Winds..With their whole card of Lungs redeem thy breath? 1808 Windham Sp. agst. Encroachm. Hyde Park 30 June, It was a saying of Lord Chatham, that the parks were the lungs of London. 1852 Mundy Our Antipodes (1857) 4 Beyond this fence the outer domain..acts as one of the lungs of Sydney. 1874 T. Hardy Far from Madding Crowd II. i. 3 That Bathsheba was a firm and positive girl..had been the very lung of his hope. 1876 ― Ethelberta (1890) 346 At length something from the lungs of the gale alighted like a feather upon the pane. 1900 Q. Rev. July 51 We can with perfect safety use these old burial grounds as lungs for the overcrowded city. |
2. Applied to analogous organs in other animals.
| 1889 Syd. Soc. Lex. s.v., In Mollusca the Pulmonata, represented by the snail and slug, have a simple type of lung... In Amphibia..the lung is a simple or double sac with a smooth lining near the termination of the trachea. |
† 3. pl. One who blows the fire; a chemist's assistant.
Obs.| 1610 B. Jonson Alch. ii. i, That's his fire-drake, His lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffes his coales. 1663 Cowley Adv. Exper. Philos. College in Verses & Ess. (1669) 43 That the Company received into it be as follows... Two Lungs, or Chemical Servants. That the annual allowance..be as follows... To each of the Lungs twelve pounds. |
4. (See
quot.)
dial. (?
Obs.)
| 1741 Compl. Fam.-Piece iii. 504 Swine..are subject to a Distemper which is called the Thirst, or Lungs. |
5. lungs of (the) oak,
oak lungs (see
oak n. 8),
Sticta pulmonacea;
= lungwort 5.
| 1856 W. L. Lindsay Brit. Lichens 183 Sticta Pulmonaria... Its specific name, as well as its familiar designation, ‘Lungs of Oak’, or ‘Tree Lungwort’ are due to its efficacy, real or supposed, in pulmonary affections. 1863 J. R. Wise New Forest xvi. 176 One of the commonest remedies for consumption in the Forest is the ‘lungs of oak’. 1866 Treas. Bot., Lungs-of-the-oak. |
6. attrib. and
Comb. a. simple attributive, as
lung-attack,
† lung-blood,
lung cancer,
lung-cell,
lung-consolidation,
lung-disease,
lung function,
lung-parenchyma,
lung-substance,
lung-tissue,
lung-trouble,
lung-tubercle,
lung-vessel.
b. objective, as
lung-bearing,
lung-bursting adjs. c. instrumental, as
lung-breather;
lung-breathing,
adj.| 1865 Mrs. Whitney Gayworthys I. 206 A *lung attack..when the three score and ten years are passed, can hardly leave a man exactly where it found him. |
| 1888 G. Allen in Gd. Words 229 The *lung-bearing and air-breathing terrestrial animal. |
| 1666 Harvey Morb. Angl. xiv. 165 *Lung-blood generally appears somewhat lighter than a natural red, because it is conceived to be rendred more aereous by the Lungs. |
| 1880 St. James's Budget 17 Sept. 12/1 The earliest *lung-breathers were amphibians. |
| 1907 Westm. Gaz. 1 June 16/3 The complete proof of this evolution of the *lung-breathing four-footed creatures of the earth from purely aquatic forms has been lost. 1949 Oxf. Jun. Encycl. II. 359/2 If the larval form [of the Axolotl] is kept..it will gradually turn into the mature, lung-breathing salamander. |
| 1971 S. Cavell World Viewed vii. 41 Baudelaire's..*lung-bursting inflation of Delacroix. 1973 C. Bonington Next Horizon xxi. 286 The last length of rope..was the most strenuous of all, taking two hours of lung-bursting effort to reach the top. |
| 1926 Jrnl. Amer. Med. Assoc. 17 July 147/1 A diagnosis of endothelioma has been made frequently in primary *lung cancers. 1953 Newsweek 25 May 60 Dr. Alton Ochsner..believes that lung cancer..‘is unquestionably due to the carcinogenic effect of cigarette smoking’. 1975 ‘G. Black’ Big Wind ii. 39 When she was still a deb..lung cancer was still diagnosed as galloping consumption. |
| 1853 Markham Skoda's Auscult. 287 The *lung-cells and finer bronchial tubes are compressed by the distended blood-vessels. |
| 1898 Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 768 In like manner, the former auscultatory signs of *lung-consolidation vanish. |
| 1897 Ibid. IV. 302 Passive congestion is a frequent cause of albuminuria, more especially in heart and *lung diseases. |
| 1966 Lancet 24 Dec. 1386/1 Systematic *lung-function studies were not carried out in these patients. |
| 1853 Markham Skoda's Auscult. 44 Effusion of blood into the *lung-parenchyma. |
| Ibid. 46 We scarcely ever find any considerable amount of *lung-substance deprived of air by pressure. |
| Ibid. 269 Signs of Pneumonia, when the *Lung-tissue is permeable to air. |
| 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 356 Some secondary *lung trouble with which there is not nervous power to contend. |
| Ibid. 309 Some decided signs of *lung tubercle are discovered early in the disease. |
| 1898 Ibid. V. 403 The absence of clotting from blood within the *lung vessels. |
7. Special combs.:
lung book, a lamellate respiratory organ found in spiders, scorpions, and certain other arachnids;
cf. book-lung (
book n. 19);
† lung-cracked a., of breath, issuing from exhausted lungs;
lung-fever, pneumonia;
lung-fish, a fish having lungs as well as gills, a dipnoan;
lung-flower, Gerarde's
transl. of the
Ger. name of the Marsh Gentian,
Gentiana Pneumonanthe;
lung fluke, a parasitic trematode flatworm of the genus
Paragonimus; also
attrib.;
† lung(s)-growing, a disease in cattle, in which the lungs adhere to the side;
† lung-grown a., said of an animal affected with ‘lung-growing’; also
n. = lung-growing;
lung-gymnastics, ‘the exercise of the respiratory powers in a regular and orderly manner for the prevention or cure of disease’ (
Syd. Soc. Lex.);
lung-juice, serum from diseased lungs;
lung lichen = lungwort 5 (J. Smith
Dict. Pop. Names Plants 1882);
lung-note, the sound produced by tapping the chest of a healthy subject;
† lung-pipe sing., the trachea or windpipe,
pl. the bronchial tubes;
lung-plague (in cattle), pleuro-pneumonia;
lung-power, power of voice;
lung-sick a. and n., (
a)
adj. sick of a pulmonary complaint; (
b)
n. a disease of the lungs, pleuro-pneumonia; so
lung-sickness;
lung snail, a snail of the order Pulmonata (see
pulmonate n.);
† lung-woe, disease of the lungs;
lung-worm, a parasite infesting the lungs of cattle (see
quot.).
| [1861 J. Blackwall Hist. Spiders Great Brit. i. 4 The internal organs of respiration in connection with the anterior pair of stigmata present the appearance of membraneous sacs formed by lamellæ applied to one another like the leaves of a book.] 1881 E. R. Lankester in Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci. XXI. 541 The lamellæ of the Scorpion's *lung-book. 1932 Borradaile & Potts Invertebrata xv. 447 The spiders, at least, have passed through a primitive lung-book stage from which they have not all emerged. In fact they show all the stages of replacement of lung books by tracheae. 1971 Nature 12 Feb. 455/1 The species [sc. Micrathena gracilis, a spider] possesses a well-developed stridulatory organ with a file on the cover of the lung book (the respiratory organ). |
| 1636 W. Denny in Ann. Dubrensia (1877) 12 The Racer..might..outward shoote His *lung-crackt-breath. |
| 1852 H. W. Pierson Amer. Missionary Mem. 229 His illness (*lung-fever) was sudden and unexpected. |
| 1883 C. F. Holder in Harper's Mag. Dec. 107/2 The curious *lung-fish (Protopterus) builds a burrow. 1968 A. S. Romer Procession of Life viii. 165 The dipnoans owe their popular name of lungfishes to the fact that, except for two ray-finned fishes..they are the only living fishes to possess these air-breathing structures. |
| 1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. ciii. 355 Viola Autumnalis, or Autumne Violet..the same that Valerius Cordus..saith is named in the German toong Lungen blumen, or *Lung flower. |
| 1900 Stiles & Hassal in 16th Ann. Rep. Bureau Animal Industry, U.S. Dept. Agric. 560 (title) The *lung fluke (Paragonimus westermanni) in swine and its relation to parasitic hemoptysis in man. 1931 Jrnl. Amer. Vet. Med. Assoc. LXXVIII. 229 (title) Lung flukes of the genus Paragonimus in American mink. 1937 Discovery Feb. 34/2 The lung-fluke disease, or paragonim[i]asis, of which they [sc. mitten crabs] are a carrier in China, does not really threaten Europe as yet. 1970 Black's Vet. Dict. (ed. 9) 516/1 Lung flukes attack cats, dogs, pigs, and man in the Far East and the United States. |
| 1704 Dict. Rust., *Lungs-growing. 1730–6 Bailey (fol.), Lung's Growing. 1775 Ash, Lunggrowing,..a disease in cattle. 1614 Markham Cheap Husb. (1623) 96 Of the diseases in the Lungs, especially the Lung-growne. |
| Ibid., A beast, which is *lung-growne, or hath his lungs growne to his side. |
| 1898 Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 46 *Lung gymnastics. |
| 1885 Klein Micro-Organisms 89 Blood, pericardial exudation, and *lung juice from the fatal Nottingham case inoculated into ten animals..produced fatal results in six. |
| 1876 Trans. Clinical Soc. IX. 189 There was..an entire want of *lung-note over the manubrium of the sternum. |
| 1562 Turner Herbal ii. 35 Rosemary..openeth the *lung pipes. 1657 Reeve God's Plea 88 Shall we be carried no further to Heaven, then..a lungpipe-pant can blow us? |
| 1884 Encycl. Brit. XVII. 60/1 Pleuro-Pneumonia or *Lung-Plague. |
| 1900 J. Kirkwood United Presbyt. in Ayrsh. iv. 34 He could exercise his *lung power also in preaching. |
| ? 1520 tr. Dial. Creat. Moral. xxvii. I, He..was made both *lungsyk and Reumatyke that he myght not occupye his accostomyd synnes. 1552 Huloet, Longe sycke, nneumonicus [sic]. 1899 Strand Mag. Mar. 270/1 For ‘lung-sick’ had reduced the..team of sixteen to..five [bullocks]. |
| 1726 Bailey, *Lung Sickness. 1730–6 ― (fol.), Lung's Sickness. 1899 Werner Capt. of Locusts 100 [He] had just had heavy losses..from the lung-sickness. |
| 1909 Westm. Gaz. 26 June 15/2 The land and most of the freshwater snails belong to the *lung snails, the gills being reduced to a mere vestige. |
| c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. i. 50 The *longe [v.r. longis] woo cometh oft of yvel eire. |
| 1882 Cassell's Nat. Hist. VI. 253 The *Lung Worm [Strongylus micrurus] is often fatal to calves. |
▪ II. lung(a see
lungi.