Etymology

throat

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Today it means: The front part of the neck. Full definition →

Middle English throte ← Old English þrote ← Proto-West Germanic *þrotu
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*trud-“to swell, become stiff”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*þrutō“throat”
  3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*þrotu
  4. Old English · inherited fromþrote
  5. Middle English · inherited fromthrote
  6. English todaythroat

From Middle English throte, from Old English þrote, þrota, þrotu (“throat”), from Proto-West Germanic *þrotu, from Proto-Germanic *þrutō (“throat”), from Proto-Indo-European *trud- (“to swell, become stiff”). Cognate with Dutch strot (“throat”), German Drossel (“throttle, gorge of game (wild animals)”), Faroese troti (“swelling”), Icelandic þroti (“swelling”), Norwegian trut (“mouth”), Swedish trut.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.