epiglottis

Noun. (anatomy) A cartilaginous organ in the throat of terrestrial vertebrates covering the glottis when swallowing to prevent food and liquid from entering the trachea, and in Homo sapiens also a speech organ.

This is an unmodified, but possibly outdated, definition from Wiktionary and used here under the Creative Commons license. Wiktionary is a great resource. If you like it too, please donate to Wikimedia.

This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.