Larynx
/ˈlærɪŋks/noun
The organ at the top of the windpipe that holds the vocal cords.
The Greek roots
Literally: “the throat”
The story of the word
Greek used λάρυγξ loosely for the upper throat, and it was anatomists, Galen among them, who pinned it to the air passage and left the φάρυγξ behind it for food. The English plural gives trouble because the Greek stem is λαρυγγ-, which is where laryngitis picks up its double g. Linguists use laryngeal for something else again: a set of lost consonants that Saussure deduced in 1879 from the shape of Indo-European roots, decades before Hittite turned up and showed he was right.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
The tumour was found on the larynx and caught early.
Singers learn what the larynx does long before they learn its name.