gullet
pronunciation
How to pronounce gullet in British English:
UK [ˈgʌlɪt]
How to pronounce gullet in American English:
US [ˈɡʌlɪt]
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- Noun:
- the passage between the pharynx and the stomach
Word Origin
- gullet
- gullet: [14] Latin gula meant ‘throat’. It was a descendant of Indo-European *gel- ‘swallow’, which also produced German kehle ‘throat’ and English glut and glutton. Gula passed into Old French as gole or goule (whence modern French gueule ‘mouth’), where it formed the basis of a diminutive form goulet, acquired by English as gullet (and later, in the 16th century, as gully, which originally meant ‘gullet’). The English heraldic term gules ‘red’ [14] also comes from Old French gole, goule, in the specialized sense ‘red fur neckpiece’.=> glut, glutton, gules, gully
- gullet (n.)
- "passage from the mouth of an animal to the stomach," c. 1300 (as a surname), from Old French golet "neck (of a bottle); gutter; bay, creek," diminutive of gole "throat, neck" (Modern French gueule), from Latin gula "throat," also "appetite," from PIE root *gwele- (3) "to swallow" (cognates: Latin gluttire "to gulp down, devour," glutto "a glutton;" Old English ceole "throat;" Old Church Slavonic glutu "gullet," Russian glot "draught, gulp;" Old Irish gelim "I devour").
Example
- 1. Drinking moutai familiarizes you with how instantaneously alcohol can go from gullet to bloodstream .
- 2. Tests by a team at the cork cancer research centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.
- 3. A cormorant feeding his child -- with partially digested fish , retrieved from deep in his gullet -- appears almost to be consuming it .
- 4. Now tests by a team at the cork cancer research centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.
- 5. The steep rise in some cancers of the gullet in developed countries could be explained by the massive increase in the consumption of fizzy soft drinks , suggests a new study .