Adam's apple
9
3.2
- noun
- /ˈædəmz ˈæpəl/
:
manzana de Adán
- Wilton felt his Adam's apple bob as the anger coursed through his body.
- Adam's apple bobbed
- a prominent Adam's apple
- a big Adam's apple
Examples
-
When he swallowed, his Adam's apple rolled up and down his throat.
Fiction book (2002) -
The skinny one speaks first, his Adam's apple jerking up and down in his neck.
Fiction book (1990) -
- I have not got an Adam's apple like that.
-
Have I got an Adam's apple like that?
-
Did you come down here to watch my Adam's apple bob about while I drink?
-
My daddy got up and held a hand to his Adam's apple.
Fiction book (1995) -
His voice is low for someone so young, and his Adam's apple is prominent and strangely mobile.
Fiction book (1997) -
The blow hit him in the larynx, or Adam's apple... causing it to swell and cutting off his windpipe.
-
Blood pulsed beside his Adam's apple, ruddy where all should have been pale.
Fiction book (1998) -
I noticed his Adam's apple protruding prominently as he spoke.
Synonyms
A large piece at the front of the voice box that forms the Adam's apple
Surface Forms
Morphology
Adam's + apple
The phrase is a lexicalized proper-name compound whose meaning (here a specific shrub) cannot be predicted from the possessive proper name 'Adam's' plus the noun 'apple'. A B1 learner who knows the constituents would most likely interpret it literally (an apple belonging to Adam) and would not infer the botanical sense; the referent is culturally/historically specific and therefore not compositionally transparent.
Etymology
Adam's apple comes from a Bible story about Adam and the forbidden fruit. One popular story says a piece of the apple got stuck in Adam's throat and made a visible bump, so the name stuck and now means the 'throat bump' at the front of the neck.