a. and sb. [ad. Gr. καρωτίδ-ες, f. καροῦν ‘to plunge into deep sleep, to stupefy,’ because compression of these arteries is said to produce carus or stupor. (Galen.)]
A. adj. Epithet of the two great arteries, one on either side of the neck, which supply blood to the head.
Each of the two primitive carotid arteries afterwards divides into two branches, called the external and internal respectively.
1667. E. King, in Phil. Trans., II. 450. Which made me open the Carotid Artery.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Obs., 193. It had passed beneath, and torn the internal carotid artery.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 649. They ascend … to the upper part of the larynx, where they divide into the external carotid and the internal carotid arteries.
b. Pertaining to or adjoining the carotid arteries; e.g., carotid canal, the tunnel through the temporal bone that gives passage to the internal carotid, and its plexus of nerves (carotid plexus).
1842. E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M., 26. Nearer to the apex of the bone is a large oval opening, the carotid foramen.
1877. Burnett, Ear, 88. The carotid canal is the simplest in structure … of the canals in or about the tympanum.
B. sb. A carotid artery.
1741. Monro, Anat. (ed. 3), 90. The Arteries derived from the external Carotids.
1806. Med. Jrnl., XV. 477. After the incision into the carotid of a horse.
1862. Calverley, Verses & Tr., 46. With vest blood-spotted, and cut carotid.
