Pl. -eæ. [med.L. trāchēa (Albertus Magnus, c. 1255) = late L. trāchīa (Macrobius, c. 400), a. Gr. τρᾱχεῖα (fem, of τρᾱχύς τough); short for ἀρτηρία τρᾱχεῖα ‘rough artery’: see ARTERY 1.]
1. Anat. and Zool. a. The musculo-membranous tube extending from the larynx to the bronchi, and surrounded by gristly (or in birds often bony) rings, which conveys the air to and from the lungs in air-breathing vertebrates; the windpipe.
In early use also in full form (L.) trachēa artēria, occas. anglicized as trache arterie or arter trache, or in one word trachearteria, and (from Fr.) trachiartere.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 153. Þouȝ þat trache arterie be peersid … ȝitt he may be heelid wiþ gode medicyns.
1495. Trevisa’s Barth. De P. R., V. xxiv. (W. de W.), h viij/2. The waye of the brethe, that is callyd Tracheartaria.
1525. trans. Brunswyke’s Surg., B ij/2. The throte bolle or trachea, ysophagus or meri.
1541. R. Copland, Galyen’s Terap., 2 H ij. The vlcere yt is in the sharpe artere called tracheia.
1543. Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., 5 b/2. The Trachea Arteria or wesaunde compouned or gristellye rynges.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, ccxxvi. 77. The longes, the midryffe, the arter trache, the Epigloote.
1548–77. Vicary, Anat., v. (1888), 44. Trachia arteria, that is, the way of the ayre.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, II. xviii. Trachiartere or pipe of the lungs.
1693. trans. Blancard’s Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Aspera Arteria, or Trachea, is an Oblong Pipe, consisting of various Cartilages and Membranes.
1713. Derham, Phys.-Theol., IV. vii. 147. Blowing Wind into the Lungs, through the Trachea.
1808. Barclay, Muscular Motions, 499. Trachea … should always be pronounced with the e long, and not short, as is usually the practice.
1888. Rolleston & Jackson, Anim. Life, 350. The organ of voice … in Aves is developed at the junction of the trachea and bronchi, and is known as the syrinx.
attrib. 1878. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg. (1879), II. 17. The cartilages and trachea rings.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 4. Trachea-bronchitis, or bronchitis of the larger tubes.
b. Each of the tubes, usually opening by stigmata on the surface of the body, which constitute a special form of respiratory organ in insects and other arthropods, conveying air to the blood and tissues generally.
1826. Good, Bk. Nat. (1834), II. 22. The tracheæ, or respiratory organs, are singularly placed at the verge of the tail.
1843. Owen, Invertebr. Anim., xix. 251. The smaller Arachnidans breathe by tracheæ exclusively.
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., i. 59. In Arachnida, tracheæ may exist alone, or be accompanied by folded pulmonary sacs.
2. Bot. One of the ducts or vessels in the woody tissue of plants, formed from the coalescence of series of cells by disappearance of the partitions between them, formerly supposed to serve for the passage of air; a wood-vessel.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 32. By means of air expanded and contracted in the tracheæ or vessels made up of elastic fibres, the sap is propelled through the arterial tubes of a plant.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., Tracheæ, in vegetables, are certain air-vessels.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem. (1814), 60. The tracheæ contain fluid matter, which is always thin, watery, and pellucid.
1885. Goodale, Physiol. Bot., § 271. 84. Ducts, or Tracheæ, are variously marked by pits.
1895. Oliver, trans. Kerner’s Nat. Hist. Plants, I. 276. Formerly the idea was held that these structures [wood-cells and wood-vessels] served for the passage of air, and it was believed that they were analogous to the respiratory organs—the so-called tracheæ—of insects; therefore these wood-vessels were also called ‘tracheæ,’ and the wood-cells ‘tracheides.’
