the.com/airway

means The passage through the nose or mouth down into the lungs that air travels through to keep you breathing.

from A straightforward compound of 'air' and 'way' — literally a way for air. Both pieces are old: 'air' traces back through French and Latin to Greek 'aer,' and 'way' is ancient Germanic, meaning path or route. The compound itself is comparatively modern, rising with the language of medicine and later aviation, where it also came to mean a navigable route through the sky — one word doing double duty for the route breath takes and the route planes take.