Pl. syringes, also syrinxes. [L., a. Gr. σῦριγξ pipe, tube, channel, fistula.]
1. An ancient musical instrument: = PAN-PIPE. Also attrib.
1606. N. B[axter], Sydney’s Ourania, E 2. The Bittour pyping in a Syrinx Reede.
1777. Forster, Voy. round World, I. 456. A new musical instrument, consisting of eight, nine or ten slender reeds…. Its resemblance to the syrinx, or Pan’s flute of the civilized Greeks.
1818. Keats, Endym., IV. 686. Pipes will I fashion of the syrinx flag.
1839. T. Mitchell, Frogs of Aristoph., 542, note. Sharp and piercing syrinx-music.
1850. Leitch, trans. C. O. Müller’s Anc. Art, § 387 (ed. 2), 501. Pan appears as … the teacher of the youthful Olympus on the syrinx.
2. Archæol. pl. Narrow rock-cut channels or tunnels, esp. in the burial vaults of ancient Egypt.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. 322. The Former of these Two Hermes … wrote in Hieroglyphicks upon Pillars, ἐν τῆ Συριγγικῆ γῆ, (as the learned Valesius conjectures it should be read, instead of Σηριαδικῆ.) Which Syringes what they were, Am. Marcellinus will instruct us.
1774. Bryant, Mythol., I. 505. Subterraneous passages, consisting of labyrinths cut in the rock, like the syringes in Upper Egypt.
1850. Leitch, trans. C. O. Müller’s Anc. Art, § 218. The ground full of syrinxes (tombs of Beni-Hassan).
3. Ornith. The organ of voice in birds, also called the lower larynx, at or near the junction of the trachea and bronchi.
1872. Coues, N. Amer. Birds, 178. The syrinx has not more than one pair of intrinsic muscles.
1888. Rolleston & Jackson, Anim. Life, 55. Common Pigeon…. The syrinx or lower larynx is simple.
