weasand

• weazand
• wezzen, wizen, wizzen, wosen (dialectal)
• wesand, wessand, wezand (obsolete)

From Middle English wesand, wesande, from Old English wǣsend, wāsend (“weasand, windpipe, gullet”), from Proto-Germanic *waisundiz (“windpipe, gullet”), from Proto-Indo-European *weys- (“to flow, run”). Cognate with Old Frisian wāsende, wāsande (“weasand”), Old Saxon wāsendi, Old High German weisant (“windpipe”), Middle High German weisant (“windpipe”), Bavarian Waisel, Wasel, Wasling (“the gullet of ruminating animals”), Alemannic German Weisel (“esophagus (of an animal)”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈwiːzənd/

weasand (plural weasands)

1. The oesophagus; the windpipe; the trachea.
   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter 42:

     “By Heaven, and all saints in it, better food hath not passed my weasand for three livelong days, and by God’s providence it is that I am now here to tell it.”

2. The throat in general.
   • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene ii], page 12:

     Caliban: […] Or cut his wezand with thy knife.

   • 1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love Life:

     ‘Which fellows?’ Very loud now, but a tightening in her weasand.

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