artery
Meaning of artery: An artery is a blood vessel that carries oxygen rich blood away from the heart toward the body's tissues and organs.
Definition of artery
An artery is a blood vessel that carries blood away from the heart toward the tissues and organs of the body. Arteries have thick, muscular, elastic walls that allow them to withstand and smooth out the pressure generated by each heartbeat, and this muscular wall can also narrow or widen to help regulate blood flow to a given area.
Most arteries carry oxygen rich blood, since the heart pumps freshly oxygenated blood from the lungs out into the body, though the pulmonary arteries are a notable exception, carrying oxygen poor blood from the heart to the lungs to be oxygenated.
As arteries travel farther from the heart, they branch into smaller vessels called arterioles and eventually into capillaries, where oxygen and nutrients are exchanged with surrounding tissue, and narrowing or blockage of an artery can reduce blood flow to whatever tissue it supplies.
Used in a sentence
Imaging showed narrowing of the artery supplying blood to the affected limb.
Good to know
The pulmonary arteries are a notable exception to the general rule that arteries carry oxygen rich blood, since they carry oxygen poor blood from the heart to the lungs.
Word origin
Where “artery” comes from
Formed from Greek arteria, originally meaning windpipe, an early term reflecting the mistaken ancient belief that arteries carried air, since they were typically found empty of blood in bodies examined after death.