windpipe
Americannoun
-
windpipes
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of windpipe
Explanation
Your windpipe is the tube you use for breathing — it connects your larynx to your lungs. Every animal that uses lungs for breathing also has a windpipe. The windpipe is made of cartilage, and it allows air to flow freely in and out of your lungs. If your windpipe becomes inflamed or irritated, you'll cough, and if it's blocked by a wayward chunk of food you may need someone to pound hard on your back or give you the Heimlich maneuver to remove it. The medical term for windpipe is trachea.
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.
See Examples For:
The numbing lidocaine was injected first and sprayed down my windpipe, making me feel as if I were drowning.
From Slate ● Apr. 18, 2026
In addition to farm work, she provides for her son day and night, including cooking and cleaning the ventilation tube in his windpipe.
From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026
Eventually, at three months, he was diagnosed with tracheomalacia, a condition where the walls of a child’s windpipe collapse.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2024
It entails wrapping both arms around a choking victim from behind, making a fist just over the victim’s navel and thrusting upward sharply five times to eject an object that is obstructing the windpipe.
From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2023
Sigemund had locked the two heads together, so that the fire was beaten back down the Dragon's windpipe by the blast of air from its other mouth.
From "Beowulf: A New Telling" by Robert Nye
If their windpipes are practically crushed inside their necks and their soft palates are elongated, frequently that is simply the way they are bred.
From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2023
Birds and reptiles have very different ways of producing sounds using the organs that surround their windpipes and lungs.
From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2023
Over the years, various methods have been used to repair or reconstruct damaged windpipes.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 6, 2021
Although Macchiarini touted the success of his artificial windpipes in medical papers, all but one of the patients who received them have died.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 13, 2018
Even that most doleful of Christian laments—“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”—sounded snappy and upbeat through these women’s windpipes as they sauntered along: “Nani oze mpasi zazo! Nani oze mpasi!”
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
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.
