Sc. and north. dial. Forms: α. 4–6 throppill, 6 -il, -el, 6–8 throple, 7 throp(p)ell, 6– thropple. β. 8– Sc. dial. thrapple. [In use from 14th c. chiefly in the North. Origin obscure: its date is against its being an altered form of THROTTLE sb.
A conjecture that it is a descendant of OE. þrotbolla, THROAT-BOLL, does not fit phonology and local distribution.]
The throat; now esp. the windpipe or gullet. (More widely in use of a horse or other beast than of human beings.)
1375. Barbour, Bruce, VII. 584. [The king] hyt þe formast in þe hals, Till throppill and vassand [v.r. wesand] ȝeid in twa.
1533. Bellenden, Livy, I. x. (S.T.S.), I. 59. He straik this thrid brothir … in þe throppil.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 164 b. The violet … swageth and softeneth the throple and the breste. Ibid. (1562), Baths, 8 b. The diseases of the longes and winde pipe or throppel.
1570. Levins, Manip., 126/19. A Throppil, iugulum.
1607. Markham, Caval., III. (1617), 15. The throppell, or neather part of the necke [of a horse] which goes from the vnder chappes to the brest.
1690. Lond. Gaz., No. 2527/4. A Light grey Mare,… one feather on each side her Thropple.
1755. Johnson, Thrapple, the windpipe of any animal. They still retain it in the Scottish dialect.
a. 1758. Ramsay, Address of Thanks, xviii. Bring to the warld the luckless wean, And sneg its infant thrapple.
1815. Scott, Guy M., i. Sorrow be in your thrapple then!
1825. Brockett, N. C. Words, Thropple, the windpipe, the throat. ‘A bull’s thropple.’
1894. Crockett, Raiders (ed. 3), 218. That dry yeukin’ in my thrapple.
