venturi

plural venturis

1. A venturi tube.
2. The throat of a carburetor, which is shaped so as to produce depressurization and swirling of the incoming air, allowing drops of fuel to be atomized (aerosolized).

   Synonyms: v, V, bbl, barrel

3. raremedicineA constriction in the flow of air to lungs.

   1 more example

   He’s at the age where mucus is a daily companion, a culture of mucus among the old, mucus in a thousand manifestations, appearing in clots by total surprise on a friend’s tablecloth, rimming his breath-passages at night in hard venturi, enough to darken the outlines of dreams and send him awake, pleading.

   1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

1. A surname from Italian.