the.com/adenoid
The tonsil's secretive cousin, hiding where your nose meets your throat, swelling to ruin your childhood sleep.
means A pad of lymphatic tissue at the back of the nasal passage, behind the throat, that helps fight infection in young children but can swell enough to block breathing and cause snoring or mouth-breathing.
from Coined in the 1800s from Greek 'aden' (gland) plus 'eidos' (form, shape) — literally 'gland-shaped.' The term was built as scientific Greek, not borrowed whole, by anatomists naming the tissue by its glandular appearance rather than its actual function, which wasn't well understood at the time.
- location
- behind the nose, not in the mouth
- peak size
- largest around age 5, then shrinks
- adulthood
- mostly vanished by late teens
- mouth breathing
- swollen ones cause that open-mouth look