[f. WIND sb.1 + PIPE sb.1 Cf. Du. † windpijpe (Kilian).]
1. The tube that leads from the throat and (dividing into the two bronchi) conveys air to and from the lungs in breathing: TRACHEA 1 a. † Formerly also pl. = the trachea and bronchi collectively.
1530. Palsgr., 289/1. Wyndpype, sifflet de gosier.
1538. Bale, God’s Promises, III. C ij. Stoppe not my wynde pypes, but geue them lyberte, To sounde to thy name.
1565. Cooper, Thesaurus, s.v. Arteria, Aspera arteria, the wine pipe [sic].
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xv. (1888), 70. The cowgh which commeth of some cold distemperature in the windepipes.
1662. J. Bargrave, Pope Alex. VII. (1867). 12. Their heads, with the livers and lungs hanging by the wine-pipes [sic], were first hanged upon those poles, and after them all their quarters, with their privities shaved.
1791. Boswell, Johnson, 19 Sept. an. 1777. When one considers what variety of sounds can be uttered by the windpipe, in the compass of a very small aperture.
1866. R. M. Ballantyne, Shifting Winds, ii. There was only just sufficient opening in the wind-pipe to permit of her breath passing … through her … mouth.
1874. Coues, Birds N.-W., 531. The Whooping Crane has a windpipe between four and five feet long—quite as long as the bird itself.
2. An artificial pipe or tube for conducting a blast of air. rare.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. v. 259/1. A Pair of Bellows…; the Wind Pipe erected.
1689. Burnet, Tracts, I. 94. A hole [let into a hill] which all the Summer long blows a fresh Air into the Cellar … but this Wind-pipe did not blow when I was there.
3. attrib. and Comb.: windpipe-stretcher, jocular, a hangman; windpipe sweetbread, the thyroid gland (of a calf) used as food.
1617. J. Taylor (Water P.), Three Weekes Observ., B 4 b. Our Wapping windpipe-stretcher.
a. 1756. Eliza Haywood, New Present for Maid (1771), 19. The fore-quarter [of veal] contains the shoulder, neck, and breast, the throat sweet-bread, and the windpipe sweetbread.
Hence (nonce-wds.) Windpipe v., trans. to utter through the windpipe, to ‘pipe’; Windpiped a., supplied with pipes figured as windpipes.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Prof. Breakf.-t., x. A city, water-veined and gas windpiped.
1895. G. Meredith, Amazing Marriage, xlv. The three guardian ladies … headed over the … town … windpiping these and similar Solan notes.
