- artery
- late 14c., from O.Fr. artaire (13c.; ModFr. artère), from L. arteria, from Gk. arteria "windpipe," also "an artery," as distinct from a vein; related to aeirein "to raise" (see aorta). They were regarded by the ancients as air ducts because the arteries do not contain blood after death; medieval writers took them for the channels of the "vital spirits." The word is used of major rivers from 1805; of railways from 1850.