Throat

How to spell throat

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce throat

What does throat mean?

1. nounThe passage at the front of the neck through which food and air pass, including the part used for swallowing and speaking.

Throat in a sentence

• A dry throat kept her reaching for water during the long meeting.

• The doctor asked him to open wide so she could examine his throat.

Where does throat come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that descends from the Old English 'throte' or 'throtu', the passage at the front of the neck. It belongs to a Germanic family of related forms, with cousins such as the Old High German 'drozza', and scholars connect the group to a root meaning something that is swollen or that bulges out, an apt description of the bulging tube of the neck. The early spelling carried a long vowel sound, and over centuries that vowel settled into the modern 'oa' we now write. The same neck imagery survives in older words like 'throttle', which originally meant to seize someone by the throat. Because the word is so old and basic, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable, and the only real trap is remembering the silent-looking 'oa' digraph rather than a single vowel.

How the word is built

• throat (a single Old English root, not a compound; no prefix or suffix)