ˈairway
Also air-way.
1. a. A passage for air, esp. one for ventilation in a mine.
| 1851 [see intake n. 4]. 1880 Colliery Guard. 5 Nov., [It] drives the gas, in a diluted state, into the airways, and so carries it away to the upcast. 1908 Daily Chron. 7 Mar. 5/5 Free the return air-way from noxious gases. |
b. A passage for air into the lungs; also, spec. a device to keep this passage open.
| 1908 Lancet 15 Feb. 491/1 Should there be much jaw spasm at the moment when it is desired to introduce the ‘air-way’ it may be necessary to separate the teeth by means of a Mason's gag. 1911 Ibid. 11 Nov. 1335/2 Insisting on the routine use in every administration of an anaesthetic of establishing an oral airway by means of a mouth-prop and tongue-clip. 1962 Ibid. 28 Apr. 879/2 To protect the patient against obstruction of the airway, endotracheal intubation with a cuffed tube is highly desirable during abdominal surgery. |
2. a. A route through the air, esp. one regularly followed by aircraft from airport to airport. Also (freq. pl.) = air-line 2.
| 1873 Punch 1 Feb. 44 [This book] professes to give..account of the..customs of..one of the planets... Are their railways, or airways, or whatever their means of locomotion may be called, as well managed as our own? 1908 Westm. Gaz. 3 Oct. 3/2 An impression of 1920... Extract from Passenger Handbook of the Great Eastern Airway Company for June. 1911 L. Blériot in Grahame-White & Harper Aeroplane 218 The Atlantic will, also, beyond doubt have its regular ‘airway’. 1920 19th Cent. Aug. 333 It is the business of an airway to sell speed at a price. 1937 Discovery May 163/2 A message was sent to an airways agent. 1946 G. B. Shaw Geneva Pref. 7 The houses and factories, the railways and airways, the orchards and furrowed fields. 1958 Economist 1 Nov. 434/2 Outside the airways..the need is for international agreement on a standard form of navigation. 1958 Economist 1 Nov. 434/2 When the airways control is completed, they will not be allowed to fly ‘see and be seen’ in British air lanes. 1971 D. Potter Brit. Eliz. Stamps xii. 130 Cambrian Airways, when they took over the operation of some internal routes previously operated only by bea, inherited the airway service. 1985 N.Y. Times 18 Mar. a4/4 We warn all international airways that all Iranian airspace is considered a prohibited zone. |
b. airway beacon (see quot. 1940).
| 1937 Aeronaut. Res. Comm. Rep. & Mem. No. 1793 p. 1 Light signals used in aviation..on or near the airway, airway beacons. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 19/2 Airway beacon, a powerful light (often flashing a morse sign), for the guidance of aircraft. |
3. A radio channel (cf. air n.1 1 c). U.S.
| 1934 in M. Weseen Dict. Amer. Slang xii. 165. 1946 Baltimore Sun 10 Oct. 18/8 By that time a radio broadcaster had appeared with a portable microphone but Ted had nothing for the airways, even after most of the other players had taken their turns at the ‘mike’. |