weasand

English

Alternative forms

• weazand
• wezzen, wizen, wizzen, wosen (dialectal)
• wesand, wessand, wezand (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English wesand, wesande, from Old English wǣsend, wāsend (“weasand, windpipe, gullet”), from Proto-Germanic *waisundiz (“windpipe, gullet”), from Proto-Indo-European *weys- (“to flow, run”). Cognate with Old Frisian wāsende, wāsande (“weasand”), Old Saxon wāsendi, Old High German weisant (“windpipe”), Middle High German weisant (“windpipe”), Bavarian Waisel, Wasel, Wasling (“the gullet of ruminating animals”), Alemannic German Weisel (“esophagus (of an animal)”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈwiːzənd/

Noun

weasand (plural weasands)

1. The oesophagus; the windpipe; the trachea.
   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter 42^[1]:

     “By Heaven, and all saints in it, better food hath not passed my weasand for three livelong days, and by God’s providence it is that I am now here to tell it.”

2. The throat in general.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 12:

     Caliban: […] Or cut his wezand with thy knife.

   • 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts:

     Rat.
     I’ll slily seize and
     Let blood from her weasand,—
     Creeping through crevice, and chink, and cranny,
     With my snaky tail, and my sides so scranny.

   • 1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love Life:

     ‘Which fellows?’ Very loud now, but a tightening in her weasand.

Translations

the oesophagus; the windpipe; the trachea

• Russian: трахе́я (ru) f (traxéja)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

the throat in general

• Russian: гло́тка (ru) f (glótka)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Anagrams

• Sandawe