Obs. Forms: 6 weesel, -zill, 6–7 wesell, -ill, -yll, weesell, -sil(l, weasill, wezill, 7 weazell, wizzel(l, 8 weezle. [First recorded in the 16th c., but perh. repr. an OE. *wǽsel, corresponding to G. dial. waisel:—WGer. *waisilo-, from the same root as WEASAND. Substitution of -el for -en is however possible.]
1. The trachea or windpipe: = WEASAND 2.
1538. Elyot, Dict., Curculio,… the wesyll of the throte of a man, wherby he drawyth wynde.
1579–80. North, Plutarch, Demosthenes (1595), 908. But wise men laughing at his fine excuse, tolde him it was no sinanche that had stopped his wesill that night, as he would make them beleeue.
a. 1597[?]. Peele, David & Bethsabe (1599), B iv. The mastiues of our land, shall werry ye, And pull the weesels from your greedy throtes.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 174. The Weasill or Wind-pipe.
1639. Mayne, City Match, III. iv. Death you Pander, Forbid the banes or I will cut your wizzell.
b. Comb.
1632. trans. Bruel’s Praxis Med., 198. Blood … if it doe come from the throate, or weazell-pipe … it is voyded by hemming.
1647. Lilly, Chr. Astrol., xliv. 269. The Weesell-pipe of a man’s Throat or Lung-pipe.
1726. Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., III. 34. From the Weezle-pipe to the Joynt of the Neck.
2. The epiglottis.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 86. The wesell of the throte, which is a litle fleshy and spongie bodie, in figure like to a pine-apple, hanging at the end of the palat.
1598. Florio, Epiglotti, the couer or wesill of the throte.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XX. ix. II. 51. The ashes of the root being burnt, cure the Vvula or swelling of the wezill in the throat.
1671. H. M., trans. Erasm. Colloq., 292. He [a cock] wants … such a tongue as we have, nor has he a weesil [L. nec (adest) epiglottis].
