deglutition

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The act or process of swallowing.

   “[T]he action of the gullet, that is deglutition, is performed and conſummated, the action being animall and partly Naturall.”

   “The Uvula […] ſerves as an arched and ſlippery Bridge, exactly fitted every way to cover the convex Sides and Rima of the Glottis, for the Aliment to ſlide eaſily along in Deglutition; it prevents the Aliment from falling out of the Fauces into the Larynx in Deglutition; and being moved by its Muſcles, protruds the Aliment backward into the upper Part of the Fauces.”

   “A man of the age of twenty-ſeven had a tubercle at the root of his tongue, for about ſix years; […] Deglutitions were rendered extremely difficult.”

   “Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.”

   “Sometimes they work by satire, as in the case of the ants here referred to; sometimes by terror, by spitefulness, by cunning stealthiness and tricks of decoy, by immense deglutitions, by any and all sorts of animal habits that connect, with prey, ferocities, voracities and disgusts that make it symbolic of evil.”