The passage that connects the back of the mouth and nose to the oesophagus.
The upper part, or nasopharynx, connects the nasal cavity to the area behind the soft palate.
The middle part, the oropharynx, runs from the nasopharynx to below the tongue.
The lower part, called the laryngopharynx, lies behind and to each side of the larynx.
Another name for the throat. The term throat is popularly applied to the region about the front of the neck generally, but in its strict sense it means the irregular cavity into which the nose and mouth open above, from which the larynx and gullet open below, and in which the channel for the air and that for the food cross one another. In its upper part, the EUSTACHIAN TUBES open one on either side, and between them on the back wall grows a mass of glandular tissue – adenoids (see NOSE, DISORDERS OF).
n. a muscular tube, lined with mucous membrane, that extends from the beginning of the oesophagus (gullet) up to the base of the skull. It is divided into the *nasopharynx, *oropharynx, and *hypopharynx (see illustration) and it communicates with the posterior *nares, *Eustachian tube, the mouth, larynx, and oesophagus. The pharynx acts as a passageway for food from the mouth to the oesophagus, and as an air passage from the nasal cavity and mouth to the larynx. It also acts as a resonating chamber for the sounds produced in the larynx. —pharyngeal adj.
Health Encyclopedia