gullet
Americannoun
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the esophagus.
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the throat or pharynx.
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a channel for water.
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a gully or ravine.
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a preparatory cut in an excavation.
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a concavity between two sawteeth, joining them at their bases.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a less formal name for the oesophagus
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the throat or pharynx
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mining quarrying a preliminary cut in excavating, wide enough to take the vehicle that removes the earth
Etymology
Origin of gullet
1350–1400; Middle English golet < Old French goulet ≪ Latin gula throat; see -et
Explanation
Gullet is another name for the esophagus, the organ that food passes through on its way to the stomach. When you eat a cupcake, it moves from your mouth to your pharynx, and then to your gullet. The gullet is an important part of your digestive system, linking your mouth and stomach, and also one of the earliest steps in the digestive process. Muscles in the gullet contract and relax, helping to push food along, a process that's called peristalsis. Gullet comes from the Old French golet, "neck of a bottle," from the Latin gula, "throat."
Vocabulary lists containing gullet
The Odyssey
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The Sea of Monsters
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The War That Saved My Life
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Regularly drinking beverages like tea and coffee at very hot temperatures increases the risk of cancer of the food pipe or gullet, known as oesophageal cancer, UK research suggests.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
Since the flare from J2245+3743 is still visible, astronomers believe the black hole is in mid-meal, "like a fish only halfway down the whale's gullet," Graham says.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 7, 2025
The birds swallowed the franks whole, straight down the gullet.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2022
Using prompts and magic tricks and graceful physical comedy, he makes an enormous amount of food appear and then disappear, seemingly down his own gullet, as in the Monty Python skit.
From New York Times ● Sep. 22, 2022
A fellow had to get it down his gullet quickly before it began to solidify, or he would gag on it.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
