weasand

• weazand
• wassin, wezzen, wizen, wizzen, wosen (dialectal)
• weazon, wesan, wessand, wezand, wezon (obsolete)

Inherited from Middle English wesand, wesande, wesaunt, from Old English *wǣsend, wāsend (“weasand, windpipe, gullet”), from Proto-West Germanic *waisund, *waisundu (“windpipe, gullet”), from Proto-Indo-European *weys- (“to flow, run”). Cognate with Old Frisian 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/
• Rhymes: -iːzənd
• Hyphenation: wea‧sand

weasand (plural weasands) (now dialectal)

1. The oesophagus; the gullet.
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XLII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

     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 or windpipe.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 12:

     […] Or cut his vvezand vvith thy knife.

   • 1646, Thomas Browne, “Of the Wish of Philoxenus [of Leucas]”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], London: […] T[homas] H[arper] for Edward Dod, […], →OCLC, 7th book, page 368:

     [A]lthough the vveazon, throtle and tongue [of birds] be the inſtruments of voice, and by their agitations doe chiefly concurre unto theſe delightfull modulations, yet cannot vve aſſigne the cauſe unto any particular formation; […]

   • 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC:

     For at the Throat there are tvvo cavities or conducting parts: the one the Oeſophagus or Gullet, ſeated next the ſpine, a part official unto nutrition, and vvhereby the aliment both vvet and dry is conveied unto the ſtomack; the other (by vvhich tis conceived the Drink doth paſs) is the vveazon, rough artery, or vvind-pipe, a part inſervient to voice and reſpiration; for thereby the air deſcendeth into the lungs, and is communicated unto the heart […]

   • 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts:

     Rat. / I’ll slily seize and / Let blood from her weasand,— / Creeping through crevice, and chink, and cranny, / With my snaky tail, and my sides so scranny.

   • 1890, Knut Hamsen, Sult (Hunger), Part Four, at p.181 (Canongate Books Ltd. 2016 paperback edition), Sverre Lyngstad translation:

     They're both so engrossed in this that they don't notice my landlady, who comes rushing out to learn what's going on. / "Why," her son explains, "he grabbed me by the weasand, it took me a long time to get my wind back."

   • 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.

• Sandawe