Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The muscular tube by which food passes from the pharynx to the stomach; the gullet.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The gullet; the canal through which food and drink pass to the stomach. In man the esophagus is a musculomembranous tube about nine inches long, extending from the pharynx to the stomach.
  • noun See esophagus.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Anat.) That part of the alimentary canal between the pharynx and the stomach; the gullet. See Illust. of Digestive apparatus, under digestive.
  • Same as esophagus, esophageal, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US Alternative spelling of oesophagus.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the passage between the pharynx and the stomach

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English isophagus, from Medieval Latin ēsophagus, from Greek oisophagos, arbitrary medical coinage perhaps from ois- : future tense stem of pherein, to carry; see oit- in Indo-European roots + -phagos, food (unattested sense) (from phagein, to eat; see bhag- in Indo-European roots).]

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