Definitions

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

  • noun A spiral-shaped cavity of the inner ear that resembles a snail shell and contains nerve endings essential for hearing.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In botany, a closely coiled legume.
  • noun A winding staircase.
  • noun In anatomy, a part of the inner ear in most vertebrated animals.

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

  • noun (Anat.) An appendage of the labyrinth of the internal ear, which is elongated and coiled into a spiral in mammals. See ear.

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

  • noun anatomy The complex, spirally coiled, tapered cavity of the inner ear in which sound vibrations are converted into nerve impulses.

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

  • noun the snail-shaped tube (in the inner ear coiled around the modiolus) where sound vibrations are converted into nerve impulses by the organ of Corti

Etymologies

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

[Latin, snail shell, from Greek kokhliās, snail, from kokhlos, land snail.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin cochlea ("snail"), from Ancient Greek κοχλίας (kokhlias, "spiral, snail shell").

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Examples

  • Within in the inner ear is a snail-shaped structure called the cochlea, which is filled with fluid and lined with cells called hair cells.

    Livescience.com 2010

  • Critics had argued that there was no way to thread electrodes into the tight spiral of the cochlea, which is an inch and a half deep inside the skull and the size of a pea.

    World Wide Mind Michael chorost 2011

  • Critics had argued that there was no way to thread electrodes into the tight spiral of the cochlea, which is an inch and a half deep inside the skull and the size of a pea.

    World Wide Mind Michael chorost 2011

  • Doctors explained that the girl's inner-ear structure, known as the cochlea, was malformed, and unless they took action, Anna would remain permanently deaf.

    Marian Wright Edelman: A Song for Anna 2009

  • Why I am deaf is a complicated matter of heredity, forty years of rock and roll and E. Power Biggs, and the departure of tiny little hairs that are supposed to cover my cochlea, which is basically a bone inside my head.

    Daniel Krotz: On Deafness 2009

  • Similar to the reptilian jaw, these three ossicles greatly amplify sound waves traveling to the inner ear, or the shell-like structure called the cochlea.

    The Elephant's Secret Sense Caitlin O'Connell 2007

  • Similar to the reptilian jaw, these three ossicles greatly amplify sound waves traveling to the inner ear, or the shell-like structure called the cochlea.

    The Elephant's Secret Sense Caitlin O'Connell 2007

  • Similar to the reptilian jaw, these three ossicles greatly amplify sound waves traveling to the inner ear, or the shell-like structure called the cochlea.

    The Elephant's Secret Sense Caitlin O'Connell 2007

  • Similar to the reptilian jaw, these three ossicles greatly amplify sound waves traveling to the inner ear, or the shell-like structure called the cochlea.

    The Elephant's Secret Sense Caitlin O'Connell 2007

  • The little hairs on the cells respond to the movement of fluid within the cochlea, which is set in motion by a series of events in response to sound waves hitting the ear drum.

    Archive 2003-06-01 2003

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