Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Zoology A respiratory aperture, especially:
- n. Zoology Any of several tracheal openings in the exoskeleton of an insect or a spider.
- n. Zoology A small respiratory opening behind the eye of certain fishes, such as sharks, rays, and skates.
- n. Zoology The blowhole of a cetacean.
- n. An aperture or opening through which air is admitted and expelled.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An aperture or orifice.
- n. In zoology, an aperture, orifice, or vent through which air, vapor, or water passes in the act of respiration; a breathing-hole; a spiraculum: applied to many different formations. Specifically— In Mammalia, the nostril or blow-hole of a cetacean, as the whale, porpoise, etc., through which air, mixed with spray or water, is expelled.
- n. A vent for small explosive outbreaks, produced upon the surface of a still highly heated and at least partially molten lava-stream by the escape of imprisoned vapors. A little cone of ejected clots may gather around it.
Wiktionary
- n. A pore or opening used (especially by spiders and some fish) for breathing.
- n. The blowhole of a whale.
- n. Any small aperture or vent for air or other fluid.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Anat.) The nostril, or one of the nostrils, of whales, porpoises, and allied animals.
- n. One of the external openings communicating with the air tubes or tracheæ of insects, myriapods, and arachnids. They are variable in number, and are usually situated on the sides of the thorax and abdomen, a pair to a segment. These openings are usually elliptical, and capable of being closed. See
Illust. under Coleoptera. - n. A tubular orifice communicating with the gill cavity of certain ganoid and all elasmobranch fishes. It is the modified first gill cleft.
- n. Any small aperture or vent for air or other fluid.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a breathing orifice
Etymologies
- Latin spiraculum, from spirare ("to breathe"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Latin spīrāculum, from spīrāre, to breathe. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A very large dome, built with great care in the centre or pole, contains another small vault as it were rising out of it, and in this is a spiracle, which is right over the altar.”
“At the end, which I was not long in reaching, a breath of wind suggested that what Gunnie had called a spiracle stretched from the roof to this place.”
“A very large dome, built with great care in the cen - tre or pole, contains another small vault as it were rising out of it, and in this is a spiracle, which is right over the altar.”
“(In the spiracle is a miniature demibranch, the pseudo-branch.”
“However, insect body size increases in three-dimensions (length, breadth, and height); hence, body size increases more quickly than spiracle area as insects get larger and larger.”
“At this stage the gills are still external, being apparent as red filaments, and, as usual, branchial filaments are also protruded through the spiracle.”
“In a corner of the Kings Palace, it being seated on a rising hill, a cave had long beene made in the body of the same hill, which received no light into it, but by a small spiracle or vent-loope, made out ingeniously on the hils side.”
“No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head.”
“It is certain that the mouth indirectly communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that this is for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle.”
“And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth of the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again sent it into the whale.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spiracle’.
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Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 636 more...
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party animals
animal parts
anal fork, electric organ, faecal parasol, sublingua, toothcomb, dewclaw, pope's nose, nerve net, oral sucker, oral arm, squid giant synapse, squid giant axon and 100 more...
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery-s
from phrontistery.info
syzygy, systyle, systematology, systatic, syssitia, syrtic, systaltic, syrt, syrinx, syphilomania, syphilology, syntrierarch and 1593 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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I didn't know there was a word for that!
interdigitate, aspheric, benthos, reptation, pastiche, pandiculate, agelast, obdormition, dysania, armscye, phosphene, etiolation and 62 more...
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rays & x-rays
raised rays
cow-nosed ray, x-ray, roentgenogram, radiogram, sunray, tomograph, whipparee, oxeye, thulium, raster, moonbeam, robinia and 86 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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The Whiteness of the Whale
Words in Melville's "Moby Dick"
grapnels, spile, pea coffee, farrago, grego, bosky, bombazine, brevet, cenotaph, cupidity, kelson, obliquity and 164 more...
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There's a word for that?
temerity, tacit, froward, faineant, caterwaul, menagerie, ennui, sine qua non, lissom, multifarious, laconic, katzenjammer and 240 more...
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Moby-Dick
Interesting words and usages.
hypo, spile, hunks, grapnel, squitchy, skrimshander, monkey jacket, direful, grego, wrapall, dreadnaught, bosky and 158 more...
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Holes
judas, judas-hole, hole, creephole, pinhole, spy-eye, blowhole, breathing-hole, spiracle, touchhole, mouth, cakehole and 166 more...
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spiro-
relating to breathing
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Trump that synonym!
Better alternatives for common words.
ex cathedra, screed, de rigueur, palpable, wheedle, piebald, incongruity, cassandra, xantippe, ebullient, exuberant, fainéant and 178 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spiracle.
yarb ...jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the whale...
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 61 Jul 25, 2008