Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Trachea
/ˈtreɪkiə/noun
The ringed tube that carries air from the throat down to the lungs.
The Greek roots
τραχεῖα
trakheîa
rough, uneven
ἀρτηρία
artēría
duct, windpipe
Literally: “the rough duct”
The story of the word
The full Greek is τραχεῖα ἀρτηρία, the rough duct, named for the cartilage ridges you can feel through the skin of the neck and set against the smooth vessels beside it. Medieval Latin dropped the noun and kept the adjective, so English now calls the tube simply "the rough one". Greek ἀρτηρία covered any vessel thought to carry air, and the ancients believed arteries did, because they empty of blood after death.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
trachomatracheotomytracheostomyartery
In a sentence
The surgeon opened the trachea below the blockage.
A peanut in the trachea is a genuine emergency.