gullet

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English golet,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French goulet, also golet,^[5][4][6] a diminutive of gole, goule (“throat, neck”), modern French gueule,^[5][4][7] from Latin gula (“throat”).^[5][3][6] The OED cites the French form from 1358.^[5] The Latin noun is related to gluttiō (“to gulp down, devour”).^[8][4] Klein and Ayto trace it to Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to swallow”),^[4][7] and compare Old English ceole, Old High German kela and German Kehle;^[4][9] Etymonline quotes de Vaan's view that this is an onomatopoeic formation.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The passage from the mouth to the stomach: about 1380, in Wyclif.^[5] Barnhart and Etymonline first find the word as a surname, about 1300 or in 1305,^[6][8][2] and Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale (about 1390) has golet.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

From "throat" the word spread to narrow things that resemble one, and some of these meanings were already present in French, where the word could also mean the neck of a bottle, a gutter, a bay or a creek.^[8] English used it for a piece of armour or part of a hood covering the neck,^[5][2][10] for a water channel from 1515,^[5] a long narrow piece of land from before 1553,^[5][10] and a gorge or defile from 1600.^[5] It was even a chimney flue from 1672 to 1715.^[5] Gully grew out of gullet.^[7][11][12] Johnson (1755) knew only "the throat; the passage through which the food passes".^[13] In the dialects a gullet was the dewlap of an animal in Suffolk, a narrow alley in Cheshire, Warwickshire and Shropshire, and a fissure in the strata of mines in Northumberland and Durham.^[14] From the 19th century it has also been the hollow between the teeth of a saw, with a verb from 1875.^[10][5]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – the passage from the mouth to the stomach.^[5]
• before 1400 – a piece of armour for the neck; part of a hood.^[5]
• 1515 – a water channel; a narrow passage for a stream.^[5]
• before 1553 – a long narrow piece of land.^[5]
• 1600 – a gorge or defile.^[5]
• 1672 – the flue of a chimney (obsolete by 1715).^[5]
• before 1684 – loosely, the throat or neck.^[5]
• 1831 – in mining, an opening in the strata.^[5]
• 1864 – a hollow between saw teeth.^[5]
• 1875 – verb, to make gullets in a saw.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The tube by which food passes from the mouth to the stomach; the esophagus.^[15][16][5]
2. The throat or pharynx.^[15][16][5]
3. A channel for water.^[16][5]
4. A ravine or gully.^[16][5]
5. (dialect) A long narrow piece of land.^[5][10][14]
6. The space between the tips of neighbouring saw teeth.^[16][10]
7. A preliminary cut in excavating, wide enough for the vehicle that removes the earth.^[15][16]
8. A tubular fold in the cytoplasm of some protozoans, which can take in food.^[16]
9. (obsolete) A piece of armour or part of a hood covering the neck.^[5][10][2]

Verb

1. To make gullets in a saw.^[5][10][16]

Related words

• gully
• gules
• glut
• glutton
• gullible
• goliard

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster