online medical dictionary | definition of gorge

1. The throat; the gullet; the canal by which food passes to the stomach. "Wherewith he gripped her gorge with so great pain." (Spenser) "Now, how abhorred! . . . My gorge rises at it." (Shak)

2. A narrow passage or entrance; as: A defile between mountains.

The entrance into a bastion or other outwork of a fort; usually synonymous with rear.

3. That which is gorged or swallowed, especially by a hawk or other fowl. "And all the way, most like a brutish beast,<su: e spewed up his gorge, that all did him detest." (Spenser)

4. A filling or choking of a passage or channel by an obstruction; as, an ice gorge in a river.

5. A concave molding; a cavetto.

6. The groove of a pulley. Gorge circle, the outline of the smallest cross-section of a hyperboloid of revolution. Gorge hook, two fishhooks, separated by a piece of lead.

Origin: F. Gorge, LL. Gorgia, throat, narrow pass, and gorga abyss, whirlpool, prob. Fr. L. Gurgea whirlpool, gulf, abyss; cf. Skr. Gargara whirlpool, go to devour. Cf. Gorget.

1. To swallow; especially, to swallow with greediness, or in large mouthfuls or quantities. "The fish has gorged the hook." (Johnson)

2. To glut; to fill up to the throat; to satiate. "The giant gorged with flesh." (Addison) "Gorge with my blood thy barbarous appetite." (Dryden)

Origin: F. Gorger. See Gorge.

(01 Mar 1998)