Forms: 1 lungen, 3–6 lunge, 3–4 longen(e, 4–6 long(e, 4–5 lounge, 5 longon, lungen, (5 longhe, lunche, 6 longue, loong), 6– lung. [OE. lungen str. fem. = OFris. lungen, MLG. lunge, MDu. longe (Du. long), OHG. lungun (MHG., mod.G. lunge); ON. with change of declension lunga wk. neut.; f. Teut. root *lung-:—OAryan *lngh- in Skr. laghu-, Gr. ἐλαφρός light: see LIGHT a.1 (The lungs were so called because of their lightness: cf. LIGHTS.)]
1. Each of the two respiratory organs in man and most vertebrate animals, placed within the cavity of the thorax on either side of the heart and communicating with the trachea or windpipe.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 160/34. Pulmo, lungen.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 92. Mið þy sceal mon lacnian þone man þe biþ lungenne wund.
c. 1250. Death, 172, in O. E. Misc., 178. Nu schal for-rotien þi liure and þi lunge.
c. 1275. Lay., 6499. Þe longene and þe liure folle to þan grunde.
13[?]. K. Alis., 4719. Men to heom threowe drit and donge, With foule ayren, with rotheres lunge.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter l. 8. It purges þe longes of inflacioun.
1390. Gower, Conf., III. 100. The lunge yifth him weie of speche.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. IX. 189. Lame men he lechede with longen of bestes.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 49. The longis hool and wynded with the best.
c. 1440. Gesta Rom., i. 3. (Harl. MS.). The archer … hath y-schotte him selfe in þe lungen.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, II. 409. Leuir and lounggis men mycht all redy se.
1481. Caxton, Reynard (Arb.), 91. The wulf … gaf to me but half the longes.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, X. vii. 63. That all the blayd, vp to the hylt and hand Amyd his flaffand longis hyd hes he.
1535. Coverdale, 1 Kings xxii. 34. A certayne man … shott the kynge of Israel betwene the mawe and ye longes.
1551. T. Wilson, Logike (1569), 48 b. Oft fetchyng of winde, declares a sicknesse of the lungus.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 133. The sicknes of the Loongs is perceiued if the Dewlap be harde closed together very farre vppe.
1610. Shaks., Temp., II. i. 174. Gentlemen,… of such sensible and nimble Lungs that they always vse to laugh at nothing.
1612. Bacon, Ess., Studies (Arb.), 13. Shooting [is good] for the Lungs and Breast.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), II. 294. In those which breathe through the lungs, some have the heart composed of two ventricles, and some have it of one.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 622. The Lungs … are two spongy, cellular, expansible organs.
1872. Mivart, Elem. Anat., xii. (1873), 462. The lungs are attached by their roots to the two branches of the windpipe.
b. transf. and fig., esp. as in phrase lungs of London (etc.), applied to open spaces within or adjacent to a city.
1657. Cleveland, Poems, 10. Could not the Winds … With their whole card of Lungs redeem thy breath?
1808. Windham, Sp. agst. Encroachm. Hyde Park, 30 June. It was a saying of Lord Chatham, that the parks were the lungs of London.
1852. Mundy, Our Antipodes (1857). 4. Beyond this fence the outer domain … acts as one of the lungs of Sydney.
1874. T. Hardy, Far fr. Mad. Crowd, II. i. 3. That Bathsheba was a firm and positive girl … had been the very lung of his hope. Ibid. (1876), Ethelberta (1890), 346. At length something from the lungs of the gale alighted like a feather upon the pane.
1900. Q. Rev., July, 51. We can with perfect safety use these old burial grounds as lungs for the overcrowded city.
2. Applied to analogous organs in other animals.
1889. Syd. Soc. Lex., s.v., In Mollusca the Pulmonata, represented by the snail and slug, have a simple type of lung…. In Amphibia … the lung is a simple or double sac with a smooth lining near the termination of the trachea.
† 3. pl. One who blows the fire; a chemist’s assistant. Obs.
1610. B. Jonson, Alch., II. i. That’s his fire-drake, His lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffes his coales.
1663. Cowley, Adv. Exper. Philos. College, in Verses & Ess. (1669), 43. That the Company received into it be as follows…. Two Lungs, or Chemical Servants. That the annual allowance … be as follows…. To each of the Lungs twelve pounds.
4. (See quot.) dial. (? Obs.)
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, III. 504. Swine … are subject to a Distemper which is called the Thirst, or Lungs.
5. Lungs of (the) oak, oak lungs (see OAK sb. 8), Sticta pulmonacea; = LUNGWORT 5.
1856. W. L. Lindsay, Brit. Lichens, 183. Sticta Pulmonaria.… Its specific name, as well as its familiar designation, ‘Lungs of Oak,’ or ‘Tree Lungwort’ are due to its efficacy, real or supposed, in pulmonary affections.
1863. J. R. Wise, New Forest, xvi. 176. One of the commonest remedies for consumption in the Forest is the ‘lungs of oak.’
1866. Treas. Bot., Lungs-of-the-oak.
6. attrib. and Comb. a. simple attributive, as lung-attack, † -blood, -cell, -consolidation, -disease, -parenchyma, -substance, -tissue, -trouble, -tubercle, -vessel. b. objective, as lung-bearing adj. c. instrumental, as lung-breather.
1865. Mrs. Whitney, Gayworthys, I. 206. A *lung attack … when the three score and ten years are passed, can hardly leave a man exactly where it found him.
1888. G. Allen, in Gd. Words, 229. The *lung-bearing and air-breathing terrestrial animal.
1666. Harvey, Morb. Angl., xiv. 165. *Lung-blood generally appears somewhat lighter than a natural red, because it is conceived to be rendred more aereous by the Lungs.
1880. St. James’s Budget, 17 Sept., 12/1. The earliest *lung-breathers were amphibians.
1853. Markham, Skoda’s Ascult., 287. The *lung-cells and finer bronchial tubes are compressed by the distended blood-vessels.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 768. In like manner, the former auscultatory signs of *lung-consolidation vanish. Ibid. (1897), IV. 302. Passive congestion is a frequent cause of albuminuria, more especially in heart and *lung diseases.
1853. Markham, Skoda’s Auscult., 44. Effusion of blood into the *lung-parenchyma. Ibid., 46. We scarcely ever find any considerable amount of *lung-substance deprived of air by pressure. Ibid., 269. Signs of Pneumonia, when the *Lung-tissue is permeable to air.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 356. Some secondary *lung trouble with which there is not nervous power to contend. Ibid., 309. Some decided signs of *lung tubercle are discovered early in the disease. Ibid. (1898), V. 403. The absence of clotting from blood within the *lung vessels.
7. Special combs.: † lung-cracked a., of breath, issuing from exhausted lungs; lung-fever, pneumonia; lung-fish, a fish having lungs as well as gills, a dipnoan; lung-flower, Gerarde’s transl. of the Ger. name of the Marsh Gentian, Gentiana Pneumonanthe; † lung(s)-growing, a disease in cattle, in which the lungs adhere to the side; † lung-grown a., said of an animal affected with ‘lung-growing’; also sb. = lung-growing; lung-gymnastics, ‘the exercise of the respiratory powers in a regular and orderly manner for the prevention or cure of disease’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.); lung-juice, serum from diseased lungs; lung lichen = LUNGWORT 5 (J. Smith, Dict. Pop. Names Plants, 1882); lung-note, the sound produced by tapping the chest of a healthy subject; † lung-pipe sing., the trachea or windpipe, pl. the bronchial tubes; lung-plague (in cattle), pleuro-pneumonia; lung-power, power of voice; lung-sick a. and sb., (a) adj. sick of a pulmonary complaint; (b) sb. a disease of the lungs, pleuro-pneumonia; so lung-sickness; † lung-woe, disease of the lungs; lung-worm, a parasite infesting the lungs of cattle (see quot.).
1636. W. Denny, in Ann. Dubrensia (1877), 12. The Racer … might … outward shoote His *lung-crackt-breath.
1852. H. W. Pierson, Amer. Missionary Mem., 229. His illness (*lung-fever) was sudden and unexpected.
1883. C. F. Holder, in Harper’s Mag., Dec., 107/2. The curious *lung-fish (Protopterus) builds a burrow.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, II. ciii. 355. Viola Autumnalis, or Autumne Violet … the same that Valerius Cordus … saith is named in the German toong Lungen blumen, or *Lung flower.
1704. Dict. Rust., *Lungs-growing.
1730–6. Bailey (fol.), Lung’s Growing.
1775. Ash, Lunggrowing,… a disease in cattle.
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb. (1623), 96. Of the diseases in the Lungs, especially the Lung-growne. Ibid. A beast, which is *lung-growne, or hath his lungs growne to his side.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 460. *Lung gymnastics.
1885. Klein, Micro-Organisms, 89. Blood, pericardial exudation, and *lung juice from the fatal Nottingham case inoculated into ten animals … produced fatal results in six.
1876. Trans. Clinical Soc., IX. 189. There was … an entire want of *lung-note over the manubrium of the sternum.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 35. Rosemary … openeth the *lung pipes.
1657. Reeve, God’s Plea, 88. Shall we be carried no further to Heaven, then … a lungpipe-pant can blow us?
1884. Encycl. Brit., XVII. 60/1. Pleuro-Pneumonia or *Lung-Plague.
1900. J. Kirkwood, United Presbyt. in Ayrsh., iv. 34. He could exercise his *lung power also in preaching?
1520[?]. trans. Dial. Creat. Moral., xxvii. I. He … was made both *lungsyk and Reumatyke that he myght not occupye his accostomyd synnes.
1552. Huloet, Longe sycke, nneumonicus [sic].
1899. Strand Mag., March, 270/1. For ‘lung-sick’ had reduced the … team of sixteen to … five [bullocks].
1726. Bailey, *Lung Sickness. Ibid. (1730–6), (fol.), Lung’s Sickness.
1899. Werner, Capt. of Locusts, 100. [He] had just had heavy losses, from the lung-sickness.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 50. The *longe [v.r. longis] woo cometh oft of yvel eire.
1882. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., VI. 253. The *Lung Worm [Strongylus micrurus] is often fatal to calves.
