[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.
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 (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.
