‖ trachea
(trəˈkiːə, often less regularly ˈtreɪkiːə)
Pl. -eæ.
[med.L. trāchēa (Albertus Magnus, c 1255) = late L. trāchīa (Macrobius, c 400), a. Gr. τρᾱχεῖα (fem. of τρᾱχύς rough); short for ἀρτηρία τρᾱχεῖα ‘rough artery’: see artery 1.]
1. Anat. and Zool. a. The musculo-membranous tube extending from the larynx to the bronchi, and surrounded by gristly (or in birds often bony) rings, which conveys the air to and from the lungs in air-breathing vertebrates; the windpipe.
In early use also in full form (L.) trachēa artēria, occas. anglicized as trache arterie or arter trache, or in one word trachearteria, and (from Fr.) trachiartere.
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 153 Þouȝ þat trache arterie be peersid..ȝitt he may be heelid wiþ gode medicyns. 1495 Trevisa's Barth. De P.R. v. xxiv. (W. de W.) h viij/2 The waye of the brethe, that is callyd Tracheartaria. 1525 tr. Brunswyke's Surg. B ij/2 The throte bolle or trachea, ysophagus or meri. 1541 R. Copland Galyen's Terap. 2 H ij, The vlcere y{supt} is in the sharpe artere called tracheia. 1543 Traheron Vigo's Chirurg. 5 b/2 The Trachea Arteria or wesaunde compouned of gristellye rynges. 1547 Boorde Brev. Health ccxxvi. 77 The longes, the midryffe, the arter trache, the Epigloote. 1548–77 Vicary Anat. v. (1888) 44 Trachia arteria, that is, the way of the ayre. 1653 Urquhart Rabelais ii. xviii, Trachiartere or pipe of the lungs. 1693 tr. Blancard's Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Aspera Arteria, or Trachea, is an Oblong Pipe, consisting of various Cartilages and Membranes. 1713 Derham Phys.-Theol. iv. vii. 147 Blowing Wind into the Lungs, through the Trachea. 1808 Barclay Muscular Motions 499 Trachea..should always be pronounced with the e long, and not short, as is usually the practice. 1888 Rolleston & Jackson Anim. Life 350 The organ of voice..in Aves is developed at the junction of the trachea and bronchi, and is known as the syrinx. |
| attrib. 1878 T. Bryant Pract. Surg. (1879) II. 17 The cartilages and trachea rings. 1898 Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 4 Trachea-bronchitis, or bronchitis of the larger tubes. |
b. Each of the tubes, usually opening by stigmata on the surface of the body, which constitute a special form of respiratory organ in insects and other arthropods, conveying air to the blood and tissues generally.
| 1826 Good Bk. Nat. (1834) II. 22 The tracheæ, or respiratory organs, are singularly placed at the verge of the tail. 1843 Owen Invertebr. Anim. xix. 251 The smaller Arachnidans breathe by tracheæ exclusively. 1877 Huxley Anat. Inv. Anim. i. 59 In Arachnida, tracheæ may exist alone, or be accompanied by folded pulmonary sacs. |
2. Bot. One of the ducts or vessels in the woody tissue of plants, formed from the coalescence of series of cells by disappearance of the partitions between them, formerly supposed to serve for the passage of air; a wood-vessel.
| 1744 Berkeley Siris §32 By means of air expanded and contracted in the tracheæ or vessels made up of elastic fibres, the sap is propelled through the arterial tubes of a plant. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v., Tracheæ, in vegetables, are certain air-vessels. 1813 Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. (1814) 60 The tracheæ contain fluid matter, which is always thin, watery, and pellucid. 1885 G. L. Goodale Physiol. Bot. §271. 84 Ducts, or Tracheæ, are variously marked by pits. 1895 Oliver tr. Kerner's Nat. Hist. Plants I. 276 Formerly the idea was held that these structures [wood-cells and wood-vessels] served for the passage of air, and it was believed that they were analogous to the respiratory organs—the so-called tracheæ—of insects; therefore these wood-vessels were also called ‘tracheæ’, and the wood-cells ‘tracheides’. |