Thyroid cartilage

The two halves of the cartilage that make out the outer surfaces extend obliquely to cover the sides of the trachea.

The superior horn is long and narrow, backward, and medialward, and ends in a conical extremity, which gives attachment to the lateral thyrohyoid ligament.

The entire superior edge of the thyroid cartilage is attached to the hyoid bone by the thyrohyoid membrane.

The English term thyroid cartilage is derived from the Latin expression cartilago thyreoides.

[7] The ancient Greek word θυρεός can be found in the Odyssey of Homer,[5][8] and represented a large square stone that was put against the door to keep it shut.

[4][21] The variant with the adjective thyreoidea (with the ending -ea) would be a faulty rendering[7][22] of Ancient Greek θυρεοειδής in Latin.

[8] No Greek loanwords (originally -ειδής/-ειδές) ending in -ideus/-idea/-ideum exist in classical Latin,[6][23] thereby making the -ideus/-idea/-ideum form non-Latinate in character.

[4][21] The variant with thyroidea (omitting e after thyr) is a compromise for English-speaking anatomists, as they have difficulties pronouncing that specific combination of letters,[25] forcing a greater resemblance between Latin and English orthography.

[15] The spelling without an e is commonly accepted in English[13][26] but earlier works preferred the etymologically correct thyreoid cartilage.

[8] The Latin translation foramen thyreoideum for θυροειδές τρῆμα by the 18th–19th-century German physician and anatomist Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring is clearly mistaken.

[8] The current foramen thyroideum of the Terminologia Anatomica is not a Latin translation of Galen's θυροειδές τρῆμα, but an orthographic revision of what was previously known in the Nomina Anatomica as foramen thyreoideum,[4][14] an inconstantly present opening in the lamina of the thyroid cartilage.

Thyroid cartilage