orifice
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of orifice
1535–45; < Middle French < Late Latin ōrificium, equivalent to Latin ōr- (stem of ōs ) mouth + -i- -i- + -fic-, combining form of facere to make, do 1 ( see -fic) + -ium noun suffix
Explanation
An orifice is an opening or a hole, most often in the body. Your mouth is an orifice through which you eat and speak, and your nostrils are orifices through which you breathe. The word orifice is used most often to describe a natural opening in the body. Humans have multiple orifices that provide passageways in and out of the body. The word orifice can also describe an opening into any cavity, such as a hollowed out tree trunk or the vent of a heating system. A volcano has at least one orifice through which lava, ash, and hot gases spew. Caves have orifices through which water, animals, and people can enter and emerge.
Vocabulary lists containing orifice
100 SAT words Beginning with "O"
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Body Language: Or, Os ("Mouth")
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As I Lay Dying
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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.
Second, smaller animals are expected to pee in droplets because their orifice is too tiny to emit anything thicker.
From Science Daily • Mar. 11, 2024
They live in every habitat on every continent and in every orifice, organ and body part of their hosts.
From Scientific American • May 18, 2022
Noses are now our preferred orifice to swab.
From Washington Post • Jan. 10, 2022
"One chick was just covered in blood, bleeding from every orifice, and we did everything we could to save it, even giving it an emergency blood transfusion from another owl at the center," Mertz says.
From Salon • Dec. 26, 2021
So it is zero outside, Quentin thought; soon he will raise the window and do deep-breathing in it, clench-fisted and naked to the waist, in the warm and rosy orifice above the iron quad.
From "Absalom, Absalom!" by William Faulkner
Definitions 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.
