fauces

Borrowing from Latin faucēs (“the upper part of a throat”).

• IPA^(key): /fɔː.siːz/

fauces pl (plural only)

1. (anatomy) The narrow passage from the mouth to the pharynx, situated between the soft palate and the base of the tongue.
2. (botany) The throat of a calyx, corolla, etc.
3. (zoology) That portion of the interior of a spiral shell which can be seen by looking into the aperture.

• Raija Hurme, Maritta Pesonen, Olli Syväoja, editors (1993), Englanti-Suomi suursanakirja, 4th edition, →ISBN, page 426
• Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. New York: Portland House, 1989. →ISBN.
• “fauces”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “fauces”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Plural of faux, of unknown etymology.[1]

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈfau̯.keːs/, [ˈfäu̯keːs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈfau̯.t͡ʃes/, [ˈfäːu̯t͡ʃes]

faucēs f pl (genitive faucium); third declension

1. (literal) the upper part of a throat; a throat, pharynx, gullet
   • c. 77 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 7.2.15:

     Et tamen omnibus hominibus contrā serpentēs inest venēnum: ferunt ictum salīvae ut ferventis aquae contāctum fugere; quod sī in faucēs penetrāverit, etiam morī, idque maximē hūmānī iēiūnī ōris.

     And still all people have a venom against snakes: they say that they avoid the attack of saliva like the touch of boiling water; and if it makes its way into the throat, they also die, and most of all in the case of that of a fasted human mouth.

2. (transferred sense)
   1. a narrow entrance, entry passage
   2. a defile, gorge
   3. the jaws of the earth; a gulf, abyss
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 6.201:

     Inde ubi venere ad fauces grave olentis Averni

     Till over foul Avernus’ sulphurous throat

Third-declension noun (i-stem), plural only.

The word is often plural, although a single instance of the nominative singular form faux is known.

• see: fōx

• → English: fauces
• → Galician: fauces
• → Italian: fauci
• → Portuguese: fauces
• → Spanish: fauces

• “fauces”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “fauces”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• fauces in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• fauces in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “fauces”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “fauces”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

fauces

1. plural of fauce